Bug#549898: hangs while setting up grub-pc

[Brice Goglin]

Package: grub-pc
Version: 1.97~beta4-1
Severity: grave
Justification: renders package unusable

Installing grub-pc on my Dell PowerEdge 2950 hangs during postinst:
  Setting up grub-common (1.97~beta4-1) ...
  Installing new version of config file /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ...
  Setting up grub-pc (1.97~beta4-1) ...
  (need ctrl-c)

I tried with 1.97~beta3-1 and 1.97~beta4-1, same result.
Two (similar) machines do this. I have 4 other older poweredge
2950 where grub-pc installs fine. Not sure what hardware difference
could explain this, the software installation is pretty much the same.

After trying to fix this a couple time and having to abort with ctrl-c,
I see this in ps:
0 D root     14935     1  0  80   0 -   944 ?      07:26 ?        00:00:00 grub-mkdevicemap --no-floppy
0 D root     15311     1  0  80   0 -   944 ?      07:33 ?        00:00:00 grub-mkdevicemap --no-floppy
0 D root     15498     1  0  80   0 -   944 ?      07:58 ?        00:00:00 grub-mkdevicemap --no-floppy
0 D root     15853     1  0  80   0 -   944 ?      07:58 ?        00:00:00 grub-mkdevicemap --device-map=/tmp/device.map.pAT8GlfT --no-floppy
0 D root     15893     1  0  80   0 -   944 ?      08:01 ?        00:00:00 grub-mkdevicemap --no-floppy
So it looks like grub-mkdevicemap hangs here.

These processes are not killable.
I thought of rebooting the machine to cleanup these processes
but I don't konw what the partial installation actually broke
from my old grub1 install.
device.map was left empty. I restored it.
Which other files should I check before I can reboot?

thanks,
Brice


-- Package-specific info:

*********************** BEGIN /proc/mounts
/dev/sda3 / ext3 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/sda6 /mnt/scratch ext3 rw,relatime,errors=continue,data=ordered 0 0
*********************** END /proc/mounts

*********************** BEGIN /boot/grub/device.map
(hd0)   /dev/sda

*********************** END /boot/grub/device.map

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.30-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR at euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages grub-pc depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]       1.5.27       Debian configuration management sy
ii  grub-common                 1.97~beta4-1 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 
ii  libc6                       2.9-25       GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  ucf                         3.0021       Update Configuration File: preserv

grub-pc recommends no packages.

Versions of packages grub-pc suggests:
pn  desktop-base                  <none>     (no description available)
pn  genisoimage                   <none>     (no description available)

-- debconf information:
  grub2/kfreebsd_cmdline:
* grub2/linux_cmdline: console=ttyS1,57600 console=tty0
* grub-pc/chainload_from_menu.lst: true
  grub-pc/kopt_extracted: true
  grub-pc/install_devices:
  grub-pc/postrm_purge_boot_grub: false
  grub2/kfreebsd_cmdline_default: quiet
* grub2/linux_cmdline_default: