Bug#500336: patch for grub detection

[Robert Millan]

tags 500336 - patch
# still being discussed
thanks

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 05:56:01PM +0100, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> 
> I wonder if we have a reliable way to know that the target system
> is a domU when we install it with d-i. After all, from what I understand
> that's the main problem to solve to be able to special-case the kernels
> that can boot in a domU only.
> 
> And I agree with Thomas that including a non-bootable kernel in menu.lst
> is bad. That's why this bug is RC… so if we have to choose beetwen missing
> some domU kernels in domU and having unbootable kernels in other
> situation, we should choose the former.

Based on Ian's advice, we stablished GRUB 2's policy in upstream on not
making any distinction and including all detected Linux images by default.
If I understood correctly, with Xen support being gradually merged into
mainline, false positives are only an issue for older versions of Linux;
we concluded that it would be acceptable to list all of them for the sake
of avoiding the complexity.

GRUB Legacy already has logic to attempt making the distinction, and there's
no point in removing it, but then again we're already considering this a
neglectable problem when it comes to GRUB 2.

Because of this, unless there's something I missed that you would like to
mention, I'm inclined to lower the severity to "important" and not consider
this a release critical issue.  If you reach a consensus on what needs to
be done, though, I'd still welcome having this fix in Lenny.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."