Bug#616082: grub-common: 10_linux adds entry even if vmlinuz* is not a Linux kernel boot executable bzImage

[Jordan Pittier]

Package: grub-common
Version: 1.98+20100804-14
Severity: wishlist
Tags: upstream

Hi,
For some reason I use the Xen dom0 Kernel provided by OpenSuse 11.3. I take it straight from their rpm package. But I still want to use Debian for
my OS.

Suse xen kernel is intented to be loaded only if the Xen HV is loaded. According to the file command :
#file vmlinuz-2.6.34-12-xen
vmlinuz-2.6.34-12-xen: gzip compressed data, from Unix,
This is different from the Xen kernel shipped with Squeeze
#file vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-xen-amd64
vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-xen-amd64: Linux kernel x86 boot executable bzImage

Suse Xen kernel is not bootable directly (grub complains with "Invalid magic number) but Debian's is (even without XEN HV).

What I suggest is that if vmlinu[xz]* is not of type "Linux kernel x86 boot executable", then 10_linux doesn't add an entry for that
particular kernel, because there is no way such a file gives a booting system (with a grub entry starting with linux, ie linux  /vmlinuz-2.6.34-12-xen). That type of kernel should be loaded only as a module (20_linux_xen works great here).

To sum up : don't assume that because a filename starts with vmlinu* it is necessarily a valid linux Kernel : other distros dont't follow this convention.

Thanks,
Jordan 

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.34-12-xen (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages grub-common depends on:
ii  base-files              6.0              Debian base system miscellaneous f
ii  dpkg                    1.15.8.10        Debian package management system
ii  gettext-base            0.18.1.1-3       GNU Internationalization utilities
ii  install-info            4.13a.dfsg.1-6   Manage installed documentation in 
ii  libc6                   2.11.2-10        Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libdevmapper1.02.1      2:1.02.48-5      The Linux Kernel Device Mapper use
ii  libfreetype6            2.4.2-2.1        FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  zlib1g                  1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 compression library - runtime

Versions of packages grub-common recommends:
pn  os-prober                     <none>     (no description available)

Versions of packages grub-common suggests:
pn  grub-emu                      <none>     (no description available)
pn  multiboot-doc                 <none>     (no description available)
pn  xorriso                       <none>     (no description available)

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'/etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen'

-- no debconf information