Bug#497791: Bug #497791, confirmation

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Dienstag, den 28.07.2009, 09:44 +0200 schrieb Adolf Winterer:
> Am Monday 27 July 2009 16:25:29 schrieb Felix Zielcke:
> > Am Montag, den 27.07.2009, 15:26 +0200 schrieb Adolf Winterer:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I can confirm the problem. This is the sequence that leads to the
> > > problem:
> > >
> > > * Install Lenny 5.0.2
> > > This will automatically use grub2, the system is perfectly bootable.
> > >
> > > * Add Squeeze to the sources.list
> > > After updating the package list the packages grub-common and grub-pc are
> > > shown as updateable.
> > >
> > > * Update grub-common and grub-pc
> > > During the update a requestor shows up in the terminal window of Synaptic
> > > asking for the device to install grub into. Here it is /dev/sda3. The
> >
> > You probable mean /dev/sda. We don't ask for partitions.
> 
> I must have misread the prompt then. On the other hand, grub is _not_ 
> installed in the MBR of the device (where rEFIt resides), but in the 
> partition /dev/sda3. How could the procedure work correctly if /dev/sda is 
> specified.

It can't. If you want to have grub in a bootsector of a partition
instead of MBR you currently have to run grub-install /dev/sda3
yourself.

> 
> > I just installed now lenny in a vm, upgraded grub-pc and grub-common to
> > squeeze and selected /dev/sda and rebooted. Worked fine.
> 
> What was your partitition layout? Was grub in the MBR of the device?

Yes grub was in MBR. There was only one partition on the disk.
> 
> > Then I did dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc to remove the selections of /dev/sda
> > and tried the same.
> > And it failed with unknown command initrd.
> > Replacing the root=UUID with root=/dev/sda1 didn't help.
> >
> > Well anyway it's a bug we already fixed and that's why we implemented
> > the debconf prompt now.
> 
> Hmm, but I had the problem. Could it be possible this only occurs, if grub 
> does not reside in the MBR?

Yes

> 
> > Are you sure that /dev/sda was seletected the 2nd time you were asked?
> 
> There was no selection by option list, it was a prompt that asked for a 
> string, anything could have been entered.
> 

Do you confuse this maybe with the kopt migration dialog from menu.lst?

In another report somebody already wished to enter a device manually.
But AFAIK debconf doestn't support it in one prompt to have a multiple
choice and can enter a device yourself, so we'd need to add a 2nd one
which I don't really like.

> 
> > > * Permanent solution
> > > Something is wrong with using UUIDs in connection with booting, because
> > > uncommenting the according line in /etc/defaults/grub:
> > > GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
> > > and running update-grub changes the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg. The line
> > > with "search ... --fsuid ..." is still present, but the line with "linux
> > > ..." has changed to reflect /dev/sda3 as boot device.
> > >
> > > Therefore the presence of the line containing "search ..." or the length
> > > of the line do not seem to be a problem, but using the UUID is.
> >
> > That's maybe for you a solution. But the real solution is to make sure
> > that grub-install gets run when the package gets upgraded, so you won't
> > be affected by other bugs in the parser etc.
> > For example there were now in the squeeze version a few parser bug
> > fixes, though they didn't affect the default generated config.
> 
> I will issue a manual grub-install before reboot with the next installation 
> and report back.
> 
> Thank you for supporting me.

Thanks for replying fast :)


-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer