Bug#588370: (#588370) symbol not found: 'grub_xputs'

[Colin Watson]

On Fri, Jul 09, 2010 at 09:49:30AM +0200, Michael wrote:
> Colin,
> 
> > debconf-show grub-pc
> 
> Look not everyone is a geek. At least you could have told Martin how
> he could have done this (via the proper boot-cd and chroot).

Martin already referred to the live CD instructions in his original
report.

> But then, why not just telling him how to fix it in the first place ?

Because I don't know the proper fix until I diagnose what's happening on
his system!  Would you also ask that a doctor prescribe medication
before finding out what's wrong?

> > This happens when you grub-install to a location other than that from which your computer
> > actually boots.
> 
> I had the same incident after a regular weekly update, yesterday. I
> did not change any setting or anything. It just didn't work anymore.
> This is sid of course...

Could you also please file a separate bug report?  I'm happy to
investigate people's problems, but I can't keep track of lots of
different people's problems when they're all bundled together into a
single bug report.  And yes, I know that the symptoms are the same, but
all this symptom means is "the GRUB core image and its modules have got
out of sync" - there are several different possible causes for it.

> I just wanted to give you a hint how many complex things could be
> involved to fix such an issue.
> I know a package maintainer is not supposed to give support on a bug
> tracker.

I'm entirely happy to give support in bug reports when it seems likely
that it can result in improvements to the software.

> But this is a special case, it's a 'super-critical' bug. I would even
> introduce this category for this kind of bugs.

Ah yes, escalation always helps ... do you believe that I'm dealing with
these problems more slowly because they aren't filed at a high enough
priority?  They all land in my inbox just the same way, and I'm dealing
with them all as fast as I can.

> And people easily feel left in the dark by the debian project if the
> debian package system breaks their computer. Wouldn't it be
> appropriate to offer immediate help, instead of asking for extra data
> and send people to file another bug report ?

No, it wouldn't, because I *cannot provide help until I know what's
wrong*.  Please don't second-guess me on this - it consumes extra time
that I could be using to help people.

> At least, you could tell them a proper mailing list.

Bug reports are fine.  I just don't want to have to deal with multiple
different problems in a single bug report.  It is not helpful to anyone
that way - it confuses users who happen upon the bug later just as much
as it confuses me.

> * grub-pc/install_devices: /dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3320620AS_5QF1HAVQ

The likely cause is that you selected a disk here which isn't the one
that your BIOS is actually booting from.  Since you have three disks,
this is quite plausible.  'dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc' and select all
three disks.

(This can't be done by default because then a different set of people
would have problems - that's why the current dialog structure doesn't
let you proceed until you take an active decision.)

Regards,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at debian.org]