Bug#1031325: e2fsprogs 1.47.0 introduces a breaking change into Bookworm, breaking grub and making installations of Ubuntu and Debian releases via debootstrap impossible

["Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 04:06:55PM -0700, Sam Hartman wrote:
> 
> You argue about shared libraries for non-packaged binaries.
> I think we mostly don't care about that, and again, I think that's at
> least a generally recognized thing that came out of our focus on
> packages and package dependencies.

Note that package dependencies doesn't allow a binary created on
Debian N to work on Debian N-1.  It just *prevents* the package from
being installed on Debian N-1.  If you care about allowing the package
to be instaslled on Debian N-1, that's what build chroots are for.
That's how we create packages for backports, after all.

I'm making a similar argument for mkfs and bootable images for older
distributions.  Just as you use a build chroot when you build a
package for Debian N-1, you should use a chroot when building a
bootable image for Debian N-1.  And that means using the chroot for
*everything*; not just installing the grub bootloader, but also
running mkfs.

(Note that using the sid grub bootloader while using the sid's
mkfs.ext4 would work in this particular case, but if you want a pure
"Bullseye" image which is identical to what running the Bullseye d-i
would create, then you should run Bullseye's mkfs, not sid's mkfs.)

      	      	       	      	  - Ted