Re: 2.2.16?

[Mark van Walraven <markv@wave.co.nz>]

On Sat, Jul 01, 2000 at 07:32:18PM -0700, Randolph Chung wrote:
>  64823 incorrect LILO automatic placement on i386
>  
> ISTR some discussions about why we don't allow what the bug submitter
> wanted, because it doesn't work in certain configurations or something.
> Mark, are you still around? Maybe you know? 

The current code *is* defective, but a correct solution is difficult
because there are a lot of possible scenarios, many with subtle problems.
Karl (and you?) made some changes quite a while back that fixed some
situations, but made others worse.  I don't believe there is a fully
satisfactory solution, short of putting in a tiny inference engine and
a set of rules[1] describing the abilities of mbr and lilo to guide the
user to suitable configuration.

For Potato, however, any change is probably going to upset someone.  Not
too many people have complained so far, so perhaps we should consider it
a known 'limitation.'  Leaving the system unbootable is not nice, though.

[1] This could be really neat[2], especially if the entire base setup was
handled by a single resolution process (allowing 'bootstrap-installed' to
be a sub-goal of 'base-system-installed').

[2] I wouldn't mind having a stab at that myself for Woody.  Working out
how to simultaneously negotiate[3] with the mbr and lilo installers and
the user for a satisfactory configuration would be ... interesting.

[3] Perhaps some sort of rule-based configuration broker in the base
set-up program.  I think the rules would have to obtained out of the
packages being installed.[4]

[4] But I digress ...

Regards,

Mark.