Bug#811311: grub2-common: after grub-install grub reads wrong grub.cfg

[Steve McIntyre]

Control: severity -1 normal

(This is annoying for you, but not "critical" by Debian standards. The
packages work for most people...)

Hi!

On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 09:47:20PM +0100, grfz wrote:
>
>on my laptop there are two debian/testing installations:
>
>- rescue: one file system on sda2 contains everything, also /boot
>
>- main: cryptsetup/lvm with separate boot partition on sda4
>
>Today I dist-upgraded 'rescue', this installed a newer kernel image
>and installed grub without asking.  Since then when booting grub
>loads 'rescue's grub.cfg.  With grub's "configfile" I'm able to
>boot 'main' and did a grub-install to automate booting:
>
>   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
>     ineffective)?
>
>While running 'main' with sda4 mounted on /boot and sda1 mounted on
>/boot/efi I did
>
>$ sudo grub-install
>grub-install: error: /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/modinfo.sh doesn't
>exist. Please specify --target or --directory.
>
>which astonished me, but
>
>$ sudo grub-install  --target=x86_64-efi  /dev/sda
>Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
>efibootmgr: EFI variables are not supported on this system.
>efibootmgr: EFI variables are not supported on this system.
>Installation finished. No error reported.

OK so you have a system installed expecting to use UEFI, but then
booted in BIOS mode. grub-install checks if you have UEFI support and
will install in that mode if it's available, otherwise it will fall
back to BIOS mode (hence the i386-pc error).

>seemed to work.  
>
>   * What was the outcome of this action?
>
>But actually after a reboot 'rescue's grub.cfg came up.  I tried
>several combinations of --target --boot-directory --recheck
>--efi-directory but with no luck.
>
>   * What outcome did you expect instead?
>
>I expected grub to use 'main's grub.cfg instead of 'rescue's.

How exactly are you booting each of the systems?

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve at einval.com
You raise the blade, you make the change... You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane...