[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#653073: why root filesystem reported as /dev/disk/by-uuid/ long name starting today?

[jidanni at jidanni.org]

RL> root= on the kernel command-line, rather than an initramfs, it may
RL> also be the case that the UUID is the only thing available to
RL> the kernel in early boot, and this is preserved.

That must be the case.

RL> Readability of the strings is not really related here.  UUIDs
RL> are used for unambiguity when referring to a specific partition,
RL> given that on modern systems device names are not guaranteed to
RL> be stable.  While it would be preferable for readability to use
RL> shorter strings, this is not strictly a bug--it's obviously
RL> correct, just not in the most readable format.

OK, I can get used to the new way, I just wish it was consistent.
I.e., I wish $ mount, and $ df, would either use all the
/proc/partitions names or all the UUID names or all the names they found
in fstab, instead of treating root different.

RL> I would suggest that you add 'break=bottom' to your kernel
RL> command-line, and check in the initramfs whether the root
RL> device UUID exists, and if so if it is a symlink to the
RL> short-form device name.  I would then mount the rootfs onto
RL> e.g. /mnt and check /proc/mounts to compare mounting the short
RL> and long names.  I would then do the same on a normally booted
RL> system to compare how mount behaves here.  If it's doing
RL> something odd in the initramfs, maybe we can fix it to behave
RL> the same as on a real system.

Errr... too deep water for me, however I have some basic conclusions
that I will post in a wider post...