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Re: [DRAFT] Policy for Linux kernel, initramfs, boot loader update process



On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 10:31:32AM -0400, Stephen Powell wrote:
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:00:10 -0400 (EDT), Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 09:29:42AM -0400, Stephen Powell wrote:
...
Since symlinks are not associated with any package in particular,
and since they seem to have been designed for the convenience of
historic boot loaders such as lilo and zipl, perhaps the best way
to handle this is for the boot loader hook script, zz-whatever, to
maintain the symlinks, if desired.

Beware that multiple boot loaders might be installed concurrently.

If each of them provide a zz- hook script implemented independently,
they might handle symlinks differently, leading to surprises.

dpkg does not prevent multiple boot loaders from being installed
concurrently; but this environment is not supported by the various
system maintainer scripts of Debian, even today.  For example,
"update-initramfs -u" currently checks to see if lilo is installed,
and if it is, it runs lilo.  But if grub (either version 1 or version
2) is installed also, it issues the following messages:

  WARNING: grub and lilo installed.
  Please de-install unused bootloader.

It could also test for other boot loaders as well, such as extlinux,
but it doesn't.  The point is that Debian's maintainer scripts
do not support multiple concurrently-installed boot loaders even today.

I read above as initramfs-tools in particular not supporting multiple bootloaders.

Could you perhaps elaborate more on why this is a general problem?


Kind regards,

 - Jonas

--
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
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