On 1/28/19 12:45, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
On 1/28/19 12:34 PM, Rick Thomas wrote:I realize that this may require some programming, but would it be possible to have it ask a question early on (maybe at or before the beginning of partitioning) requesting the user to choose between yaboot and grub? Then the partitioner would automatically create the necessary partition(s) and “install boot loader” would automatically install the chosen boot loader conditioned on the answer to the question…
@Rick: I thought about something like this since Mark reported the bootstrap limits in OpenBIOS. It could in principle work similar to the switch between non-GPT and GPT capable SPARC hardware ([1]). [1]: https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/grub-installer/commit/8cd8db89cb1fdd554f153ec6af74d8a30c05a3be But as long as nobody is maintaining the software this is meant to support (i.e. yaboot and all the HFS related stuff), I don't think a development effort is justified. Sorry. :-/
Yaboot is unmaintained upstream and does not support modern ext4 features. In order for Yaboot to work properly, you have to turn certain features in ext4 off, otherwise it won't work and the boot fails. Unless someone picks up maintenance work on Yaboot and makes it work with modern ext4 versions, I don't see any particular reason to keep Yaboot.Are there other architectures where something like this might be useful?Why do you think should the installer support a boot loader that is known to be buggy and unmaintained? If users insist on using Yaboot, they can still install it manually. I do not see a point, however, to keep it in the archive.
@Adrian: Did you perhaps meant to write "I do not see a point, however, to **not** keep it in the archive."? It would be unsupported though, but users could still use yaboot and help out each other with tips and tricks in case of problems. Apart from the issues with "legacy" bootloaders like yaboot and SILO, I find it still useful to have another bootloader available for verification, e.g. in cases where bootloader A makes problems and the verification on another bootloader B could show if this is a general problem or a problem with bootloader A only.