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Bug#666552: marked as done ([grub-common] Bad GRUB / os-prober integration: Other operating systems removed from GRUB's list when os-prober is removed, duplicate menu entries)



Your message dated Sat, 30 Oct 2021 18:30:54 +0200
with message-id <[🔎] 20211030183054.906cb9aac22395d0f32a6a86@mailbox.org>
and subject line Mass-closing old grub-installer bugs
has caused the Debian Bug report #666552,
regarding [grub-common] Bad GRUB / os-prober integration: Other operating systems removed from GRUB's list when os-prober is removed, duplicate menu entries
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.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact owner@bugs.debian.org
immediately.)


-- 
666552: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=666552
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
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Package: grub-common, os-prober, grub-installer
Version: 1.99-17
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: 650414@bugs.debian.org
X-Debbugs-Cc: 563204@bugs.debian.org

GRUB doesn't depend on os-prober, it only recommends it.

One obvious effect is that when installing GRUB, other operating systems are not necessarily detected. This was reported in #563204. However, debian-installer includes a fallback procedure to write a static /etc/grub.d/30_otheros in that case (for example, when installing from a netinst without a mirror). This itself has a downside - if os-prober is later installed, both 30_otheros and 30_os-prober will cause the addition of entries for other OS-es, so other operating systems will be duplicated.

One less obvious and worst effect, which was alluded to in comments of #563204, is that the removal of os-prober eventually causes the loss of other operating systems. And this is both likely and non-trivial to "debug".
os-prober is only extra. Its extended description reads:

This package detects other OSes available on a system and outputs the results in a generic machine-readable format.

Unless the administrator reading this is very alert, it's unlikely he will think the removal of os-prober can affect GRUB. And when removing os-prober, there is no warning at all about an effect on GRUB.

Also, the effect will only be seen after grub.cfg is updated and then the system rebooted, which will normally take days, usually weeks, so it will be hard for the administrator to realize that his removal of os-prober caused the problem when he notices the problem.


The duplication of menu entries could be solved by removing 30_otheros when os-prober is installed. The loss of menu entries could be solved by writing a "final" 30_otheros when os-prober is removed, in prerm. However, it would be even better, and much less complicated to implement, to simply make GRUB depend on os-prober, which only weighs 128 kB, as suggested in #563204. This would in fact allow a substantial simplification of grub-installer eventually, and fix #650414 for free. It could also make os-prober-udeb unneeded.




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Hi,

similar to the installation-reports bugs, I'm closing the grub-installer reports 
below.

These are reports for Debian 4 / 6 / 7 / 9 where grub-installer fails (for 
various reasons).


There have been numerous changes/improvements on this topics in the past, and 
also because of the age of the reports we should consider these problems as 
being fixed (or it is even reported in the bugs that they are fixed).
They are most likely of no use anymore for recent releases.

If you know, that the issue you reported (and gets closed here) is still 
existing in recent installation images, please file a new report for that with 
up-to-date details!

Thank you for filing these bug reports, they have been very useful at the time 
they were filed!


https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=785149
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=489005
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=610116
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=611713
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=612420
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=621923
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=647267
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=659116
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=665856
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=666552
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=668923
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686955
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=690515
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=690592
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=702731
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=729411
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=771467
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=780115
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=806164
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=806849
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=416986
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=252009
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=292513
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=310798
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=391489
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=489006
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=578338
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=582367
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=229128
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=463842
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=497168
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=500079
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=516392
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=520361
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=544949
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=549703
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=557242
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=580461
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=587699
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=588670
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=596877
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=612025
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=618498
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=639713
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=666559
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=699456
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=703901
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=707604
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=711330
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=609939
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=498831


Cheers
Holger


-- 
Holger Wansing <hwansing@mailbox.org>
PGP-Fingerprint: 496A C6E8 1442 4B34 8508  3529 59F1 87CA 156E B076

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