[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Filing bug reports in Debian (was Re: Debian Stole My Name!)



On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 13:56:57 -0400, Hal Vaughan wrote:

[...]

> I'll ask you to read in this context: 1) You know very little about how 
> packages in Debian are maintained, 2) You know nothing about the 
> internals of apt, 3) You do not know Christian at all, have no idea 
> what he is like, and do not know what to expect, and 4) You have just 
> found what has every appearance of a severe bug: Upgrading some files 
> can keep a system from booting.  While your problem is resolved, you're 
> trying to help the distro you prefer keep that from happening to anyone 
> else.
> 
> With that in mind, notice that nothing said in those posts is at all 
> helpful.

Quoting from the first reply:

| Please look in /etc/kernel-img.conf, you'll probably find:
| 
| postinst_hook = /sbin/update-grub
| postrm_hook   = /sbin/update-grub

Quoting from the second reply:

| I suggest you also read the comments in /boot/grub/menu.lst. They
| explain very well that some sections of the file are likely to be
| overwritten when the file is regenerated by update-grub.
|
| I guess that the update you made installed a new kernel image...which
| trigger an update of the grub menu file when the postinst script of
| the kernel image package is run.

These are the comments right at the beginning of /boot/grub/menu.lst:

| # menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8)
| #            grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8),
| #            grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub
| #            and /usr/share/doc/grub-doc/.

and a bit further down in the same file:

|### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
|## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified
|## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below
|
|## DO NOT UNCOMMENT THEM, Just edit them to your needs

Quoting from the manpage of update-grub:

| The  update-grub  script  can be ran automagically from the
| /etc/kernel-img.conf file by adding the following lines:
| 
|     postinst_hook = update-grub
|     postrm_hook = update-grub
|     do_bootloader = no
| 
| For further information related to /etc/kernel-img.conf, see the
| manpage kernel-img.conf(5).

The manpage of kernel-img.conf explains the hooks in more detail.

> There is no effort, in any of his responses, to say, "Yes, 
> there is a problem here, and while it's not my job to solve it, here's 
> where to look next."

He told you where to look next. 

> where to look next."  What there is, terms of a response, is, "It's not 
> a bug, at least not one I have to worry about."

You never provided details on why update-grub broke your system. If you
customized menu.lst yourself without reading the comments in the
original file and the documentation referenced therein then your
subsequent problem is not a serious bug.

> There was also the point that I bought up of him saying I did things I 
> did not do, which left me confused.  (He said I specified to run 
> update-grub, which I stated I never did unless some package did it 
> without me knowing it.)  That's another point that he made no effort to 
> clarify.  While it's a small thing, it's just one of many things that 
> left me with the feeling his concern was more to close it out than to 
> solve the overall problem.

He had already given you all the necessary information to fix your
problem, and there was no indication that a system with a standard
menu.lst would be affected.

> Also note that this bug includes reporting a bug that can make a system 
> 100% non-functional.  Yes, it's a serious bug, yet the response is 
> basically, "Not my problem, go away."  Notice he specifically mentions 
> this list as a forum to address it in, which is where I brought it up 
> originally.  It may not be outright rude, but when someone brings up a 
> bug that is serious enough to disable a Debian based system and the 
> response is, "It's not my problem," would you consider that just terse 
> or something more?  Just what would you call it when someone, who can 
> help, doesn't want to bother assisting someone who has found a serious 
> bug?

He did assist you.

[...]

> Maybe it's from the jobs I had along the way, but I cannot imagine being 
> part of an organization and someone coming to me for help and 
> saying, "It's not my problem," without doing my best to give them SOME 
> clue on where to go next.

He gave you clues where to go next.

> Again, it's a serious bug.  Does it make sense, if someone says, "This 
> action makes a computer unbootable" to not try to prevent it from 
> happening to others also using Debian?

You never followed up with evidence that a standard system would be
affected and nobody else reported this problem, therefore the bug was
closed.

[...]

-- 
Regards,            | http://users.icfo.es/Florian.Kulzer
          Florian   |


Reply to: