Hello,
On Fri, 21 Sep 2007, Michael Burschik wrote:
if my Debian system fails to boot, should I report this as a bug? If
so, against which package should I file the bug and which severity would
be appropriate?
As long as you can clearly identify that this is not due to "operator
error" (:-)) it is indeed a bug against some package/packages.
However, in order to file the bug correctly it helps if you can
identify the package which is causing the failure. I admit that in
the case of a non-booting system this may not be entirely trivial.
As the kernel is unable to find its root device
due to the fact that device names change in a semi-random manner, I
filed a bug against the kernel, but it was summarily dismissed on the
grounds that the kernel does not guarantee persistent device names.
Which indicates that the bug is not with the kernel.
However, as a Debian user, I really don't care whether this is,
strictly speaking, a kernel bug or not.
But to file a bug report which can result in appropriate corrective
measures (and indeed that is the purpose of filing a bug report ---
though occasionally one succumbs to the temptation to file a bug
report based one's annoyance at that %@#-thing that refuses to
function properly), it is necessary to identify correctly the source
of the problem.
If it is not the kernel, then it must be
udev, which should ensure that device names do not change randomly
Which is does *if* an appropriate configuration file for persistent
names has been created.
the installer, which should have configured the system in such a way
that it continues to function if device names change on reboot
(provided that this behaviour must be expected).
If indeed the partition to which the system was installed was created
by the Debian installer and the boot mechanism was installed by the
installer then this does seem to point to a bug in the installer.