Bug#557425: More problems

[enno.vet at gmx.net]

Installing grub-pc left my system unbootable, too.

It just says: Error 15
(or similar)

I suspect that this message comes from the original (now named legacy) grub, as the MBR hasn't been changed at all.

Good Luck my trust in debian wasn't that great as NOT to produce some sort of boot-device in advance -- in my case a CD, as my laptop doesn't have a floppy drive.  This is the first time I've ever been let down by debian.

Anyway, reading through the bug list I found some things and tried:
# dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc
and got the followin whiptail question:

-------------------------| Configuring grub-pc |-----------------------
The following Linux command line was extracted from /etc/default/grub
or the `kopt' parameter in GRUB Legacy's menu.lst.  Please verify that
it is correct, and modify it if necessary.

Linux command line:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

                                 <Ok>

Now that isn't very convincing.  I'm not impressed.

To add to confusion:
my /boot is a separate partition on (hd0,0) usually mounted ro, root is on (hd0,3), whereas (hd0,2) is occupied by some proprietary software that seems to have been correctly identified for the use of creating grub.conf:

menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (on /dev/hda2)" {
	insmod ntfs
	set root=(hd0,2)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set xyz
	drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
	chainloader +1
}

Then (having just hit enter) I get this (as mentioned in previous bug reports):
-----| Configuring grub-pc |----
  GRUB install devices:

   [ ] /dev/hda

           <Ok>
--------------------------------

This time I hit space to mark the offered entry.  Get answer:

Replacing config file /etc/default/grub with new version
Installation finished. No error reported.
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: [...]
Found Micr[...]
done

Miraculously, now it works.

Still, the console isn't configured properly.  The grub-shell help is nearly as bad as Windows Help.

Whatever, this will create so many 'debian is unstable' or 'linux is unstable' (or replace unstable with unreliable if you like) that if I were in charge I'd immediately remove this package from stable and also remove all dependencies within stable, and resort to good old grub(-now: legacy) or even lilo.

Brgds.