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Bug#701223: marked as done (post-install boot failure with ext2 + TTY-only (desktop tasksel skipped) installation)

Your message dated Sun, 21 Jul 2013 15:53:10 +0200
with message-id <201307211553.37517.holger@layer-acht.org>
and subject line dealing with old debian-installer bugs
has caused the Debian Bug report #701223,
regarding post-install boot failure with ext2 + TTY-only (desktop tasksel skipped) installation
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
701223: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=701223
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: debian-installer
Version: 6.0.6
I'm trying to build a text-only (no graphical desktop) Debian system with ext2 instead of the default ext3, but the resulting install is unbootable due to a bad grub configuration. To reproduce: 

  1) I used the 6.0.6 netboot installer (tried both 32-bit and 64-bit)

  2) Went with default responses, with two deviations:
2A) Instead of guided partitioning, manually set a / partition and a swap partition, with / formatted as ext2
2B) When tasksel came up with the defaults of graphical desktop and standard system utilities, I unchecked graphical desktop
3) Upon reboot, the grub menu comes up, then grub loads the kernel and initrd, then the usual "Loading, please wait...", but a little while later we get "Gave up waiting for root device" and it drops into the rescue shell. 

The culprit is line 6 of the GRUB configuration:

1: insmod part_msdos
2: insmod ext2
3: set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
4: search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set ####
5: echo 'Loading Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 ...'
6: linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-amd64 root=/dev/sde1 ro
7: echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
8: initrd /boot/initrd.img-02.6.32-5-amd64
The target hard drive was indeed /dev/sde when the installer was running (due to USB card reader devices taking up earlier slots), yet it seems that at boot time the hard drive is now /dev/sda. If I use the built-in GRUB editor to on-the-fly change that line to have "root=/dev/sda1", then the system boots fine. Once booted, if I then run "update-grub", the new GRUB configuration has "root=UUID=####" instead of "root=/dev/sde1", and everything works fine.
If I start over and reinstall with ext3 instead of ext2, then the GRUB configuration already has "root=UUID=####", whence everything works fine. It also works fine with ext4. Thus there seems to be a bug in the Debian Installer when it comes to writing the GRUB configuration, specifically in the case of using ext2.
In fact, if I drop into a shell at the end of installation but before the reboot, I observe that grub-probe returns the correct UUID of the partition, but the /target/dev/disk/by-uuid/ directory contains a BOGUS value! Hence the grub-mkconfig script doesn't trust the UUID and doesn't write it into the GRUB config. However, after reboot (via on-the-fly GRUB editing), the /dev/disk/by/uuid/ directory contains the correct value, explaining why update-grub at this point does the right thing.
I also stumbled on a mysterious different way to avoid triggering the bug: if I start over and reinstall, again with ext2, but this time allowing the graphical desktop in tasksel, then the GRUB configuration ends up with the desired "root=UUID=####"! I'm at a complete loss to explain this. Can the installation of the graphical desktop task somehow cause /target/dev/disk/by/uuid/ to get corrected? I'm guessing that task subsequently invokes "update-grub" after installing the background graphics for the GRUB menu, but how are the udev links getting corrected by the graphical desktop task?
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
tags 697985 + moreinfo
tags 647406 + wontifx
thanks

Hi,

thank you for submitting bug reports concering debian-installer, much 
appreciated.

I read through all the bugs mentioned here (and I'm sure they were read by 
several people at the time they were submitted) and am closing them now as/if
- they (finally) indicated success and/or
- I know from first hand experience that the functionality is working in 
Wheezy and/or
- they only contained very little information and/or
- they contained user errors and/or
- they have been from a development phase where things were not stable and/or
- they are very old and/or
- they are wishlist but rather special + exotic and not have been acted on for 
years. (See http://blog.liw.fi/posts/wishlist-bugs/ why it's often useful to 
close wishlist bugs.)

If I've closed a bug incorrectly please do reply (it's easy to reopen and I'll 
do if requested) or just file a new one - and that's often better, as the bug 
log will be clearer and shorter and not contain cruft.


cheers,
        Holger

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