Re: Grub vs. linux-image-2.6.32 conundrum
On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:08:29 -0400 (EDT), John Hasler wrote:
> Stephen Powell wrote:
>> If there is a bug...
>
> There clearly is.
>>
>> But as for it's operation, it is working as designed.
>
> Design errors are still bugs.
The main difference between a bug and a feature is that a feature is
documented and a bug is not. So perhaps you are right. I can find
no official documentation for /etc/kernel-img.conf as used by the
maintainer scripts which ship with official Debian stock kernel image packages.
There is some documentation for the version of /etc/kernel-img.conf
which is used by the maintainer scripts which are packaged with kernel
image packages created by make-kpkg in the kernel-package package,
but that clearly doesn't apply here.
As best as I can tell, kernel-package was at one time used by the
Debian kernel team to create official Debian stock kernel image packages.
But at some point in the past there was a parting of the ways, and the Debian
kernel team started using other tools to create official Debian stock kernel
image packages. What I learned about /etc/kernel-img.conf I learned from
reading the man page that comes with the *Lenny* version of kernel-package.
However, starting with the Squeeze version of kernel-package, there
is a major philosophical departure from the past. The new philosophy
of the maintainer scripts that are packaged with a kernel image package
created by make-kpkg is that *no* post-installation tasks such as
creating an initial RAM filesystem, updating the symlinks, or re-running
the boot loader will be performed. If you want those things, you need
to do them in a hook script. The maintainer scripts that ship with
stock kernel image packages still support most of these options. Documentation
for most of these options has been removed from the man page that ships with
the Squeeze version of kernel-package. The closest thing to documentation
for the Squeeze version of /etc/kernel-img.conf, as used by the maintainer
scripts for official Debian stock kernel image packages, is the man page
for kernel-img.conf that ships with the *Lenny* version of kernel-package.
This is not a good situation, and it should be addressed. The problem is,
against what package would you open a bug report, since the file does not
belong to a package? The file is referenced by the maintainer scripts of
*every* stock kernel image package for *every* architecture, as well as by
some other packages, such as the update-initramfs script of initramfs-tools.
(By the way, the fact that "do_bootloader = yes" is *not* honored for initial
RAM filesystem *creation*, but *is* honored by an initial RAM filesystem
*update*, may be a bug in the update-initramfs script of the initramfs-tools
package.)
--
.''`. Stephen Powell <zlinuxman@wowway.com>
: :' :
`. `'`
`-
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