Re: lower priority for grub-installer/only_debian ?

[Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 08:08:51PM +0200, Christian Perrier wrote:
> Quoting Robert Millan (rmh@aybabtu.com):
> > 
> > I would recommend that when no other OS is found, GRUB confirmation isn't
> > displayed unless in expert mode.  That is, to lower priority for
> > grub-installer/only_debian (see attached patch).
> > 
> > Any comments?
> 
> Well, in theory, that's interesting, but what happens if *there is*
> another OS but D-I is just not able to recognize it (this could maybe
> even happen on very weird Windows installs).
> 
> In such case, overwriting the boot loader without warning could be
> considered quite invasive.
> 
> Or is there something I'm missing?

My point is that if we do our best to avoid this corner situation, it is
reasonable that in some weird situation MBR is overwritten because os-prober
wasn't good enough.  After all:

  #1- os-prober _should_ be good enough.  And if it isn't, it should be fixed
      and the proposed change is a good incentive to get those bugs fixed (in
      case they do exist).
  #2- Windows does it every time.  In fact, it doesn't do any effort at all
      to avoid it, and it never asks the user.  Of course I don't think it's a
      good reference to follow, but the doing our best effort to avoid
      overwriting another OS's MBR is quite a big difference from that.
  #3- In most OSes it's easy to repair/reinstall their own boot manager again
      after it has been overwritten (typicaly because of #2 ;-)).

-- 
Robert Millan

<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)