Re: Debian libata transition (bug in initramfs-tools?)
Hi Ben
On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 20:32, Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> wrote:
>> > You should really use the 'reportbug' command to send bug reports.
>>
>> I wasn't sure that it was a bug, so I thought I'd start a discussion
>> before filing a bug report. I'm happy to submit a proper bug report if
>> required. Also, it is tricky to use reportbug on a system that doesn't
>> boot :-)
>
> Can you not reboot into the previous kernel version?
Booting into the previous kernel required removing the hard drive from
the machine and installing it in a USB enclosure. The box is headless,
and the name of the kernel and initramfs files are hard coded in the
bootloader (Redboot) in the system flash memory. So, you either need
to copy new kernel or image files to the hard drive that have the
required names, or have prepared and copied a recovery kernel image
and initramfs to the hard drive. With the latter option, you have to
interrupt the boot loader and manually enter the boot commands to load
the recovery kernel and initramfs. Also, you can't just use the
vmlinuz files in /boot because the kernel image needs to be prepended
with 8 bytes of data. So, in short, it was a pain. (You did ask :-) )
>> > Right. I assume you have configured initramfs-tools with MODULES=dep,
>> > and it worked out the required modules for the *running* kernel not
>> > the newly installed kernel. That would be a bug.
>>
>> You are correct: MODULES=dep. I have never changed, so I guess it was
>> set like that when I installed lenny.
>
> There is an option for this at installation time, but it is not the
> default. I think it might be automatically selected for systems with
> little RAM, though.
That makes sense because I think that the installer is configured to
run in low memory mode for this system (tbm would know for sure). The
system has 128 MB of RAM.
>> Would the solution then be to require people to (temporarily) set
>> MODULES=most before upgrading?
>
> That should work around the bug unless the system is short of RAM (less
> than about 64 MB). If this can't easily be fixed in initramfs-tools
> then we could mention that in the release notes.
This situation seems like a corner case because the user base for this
system is very small (I only use the one I had for testing Debian).
Unless there are other systems that may be affected, I think that a
note in the installation instructions should be sufficient, unless of
course there is an easy fix.
Gordon
--
Gordon Farquharson
GnuPG Key ID: 32D6D676
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