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Re: Is it a "user error" to use lilo?



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On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 09:07:29AM -0500, William Pitcock wrote:
>On Wed, 2008-08-27 at 15:41 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>> 
>> Harrasing LILO users by silencing bugreports about problems[2] using 
>> it is the wrong approach.  If LILO is officially unsupported by 
>> Debian (not only by kernel team and/or initramfs-tools maintainer) we 
>> should drop that package from the archive!
>
>I am LILO's maintainer. It is hardly unsupported, infact it is 
>supported better now than it has been in a long time.

great to hear that (and no, I was unware that you were its maintainer)!


>The initramfs-tools maintainer does not support any bootloader. It is 
>not their place to support any bootloaders.

I agree (I maintain an alternate ramdisk generator, yaird), but there 
seems to be different opinions on that:


jonas@auryn:~$ grep -n lilo /usr/sbin/update-initramfs 
175:# lilo call
176:run_lilo()
178:	# show lilo errors on failure
179:	if ! lilo -t  > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then
180:		echo "ERROR lilo fails for new ${initramfs}:"
182:		lilo -t
184:	lilo
187:# check if lilo is on mbr
200:	# check out lilo.conf for validity
201:	boot=$(awk -F = '/^boot=/{ print $2}' /etc/lilo.conf)
221:		&& run_lilo && return 0
225:	echo "WARNING: grub and lilo installed."
227:	echo "If you use lilo as bootloader you must run lilo!"
234:	# if both lilo and grub around, figure out if lilo needs to be run
237:		if [ -e /etc/lilo.conf ] && [ -x /sbin/lilo ]; then
242:				run_lilo
254:	if [ -r /etc/lilo.conf ] && [ -x /sbin/lilo ]; then
255:		run_lilo
258:	if [ -x /sbin/elilo ]; then
259:		elilo


>I think it is absurd that you claim you are being silenced when you are 
>not.

I am not. I was referring to bugreports, not myself.

(To be exact, Max has actually kindly asked me to keep silent about 
kernel and initramfs-tools bugs, but that is _not_ the issue raised 
here!)


>If you have both GRUB and LILO installed, there will be problems. That 
>is infact, a bug. They should Conflict with each other to ensure that 
>only one can be installed at a time, but it is a minor bug at best, as 
>any smart user would not have both bootloaders installed. And infact, 
>any typical user would not install a second bootloader.

I agree that it is highly unusual to activate multiple bootloaders 
concurrently.  But not to install multiple bootloader _packages_.

I would want both to be supported.  but sure, that is up to you 
bootloader package maintainers.

I consider it wrong to close bugreports filed against initramfs-tools 
when (partly) belonging to lilo.  But sure, if you as lilo maintainer is 
happy with that, I rest my case.


  - Jonas

- -- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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