Re: Setup Grub-Legacy on Jessie
Pascal Hambourg composed on 2017-07-20 23:40 (UTC+0200):
> Felix Miata composed:
>> Grub Legacy requires no scripts or filesystem mounting to
>> setup, and its menu.lst is magnitudes easier than Grub2's grub.cfg to manually
>> maintain.
> This is your opinion.
Grub2 setup can be run without mounting the target filesystem?
(boot anything that has Grub Legacy available in the path)
# grub
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1 # verify current state is as expected
grub> root (hd0,6) # specify installation source
grub> setup (hd0,2) # make a primary bootable
(ready to boot third primary partition on first HD)
Do similarly simple Grub2 instructions exist? I've never seen any, and I don't
see how they could be with entirely different syntax between partition numbering
and disk numbering.
OTOH, every Debian kernel installation, plus initrd regenerations, fill my
screens with complaints like
dpkg: warning: version 'cur' has bad syntax: version number does not start with
digit
dpkg: warning: version 'prv' has bad syntax: version number does not start with
digit
Bootloaders don't need numbers in kernel names. Boot menus don't need updates at
kernel installation times when suitable generic symlinks are maintained.
> I beg to differ. Once you are used to it, manually
> maintaining grub.cfg is rather easy.
In your opinion. I find smaller files using volume labels easier to maintain
than larger ones with humanly immemorable UUIDs. I don't see how files 10X as
large that additionally involve scripting can be preferable. It might be of
small consequence on one or a few installations, but with my many I go with
skipping the confusion of a poorly compatible mixture, plus what ain't broke
don't need fixin.
>> All my PCs have a master boot partition, where Grub Legacy from openSUSE is
>> installed. openSUSE's Grub Legacy has been kept adequately maintained for my
>> needs, which means EXT4 filesystems are fully supported. OTOH, Debian's Grub
>> Legacy is broken WRT EXT4, OK with EXT2/3.
> Because the upstream GRUB legacy does not support ext4,
Since when has there been any upstream Grub Legacy? Upstream restarted from
scratch, a whole new set of requirements and bugs to go along with incompatible
menu and setup, a very different bootloader deserving of a very different name.
> not even
> mentioning newer filesystems such as btrfs, or features such as LVM,
> RAID (no, GRUB legacy has no full software RAID support).
Some people are satisfied to keep what works working and let others do the
experimenting. WRT filesystems I don't experiment; my experimental efforts go
elsewhere. I have multiple PCs running RAID, all of which boot using Grub, none
of which have Grub on MBR.
> It is SUSE which patched its GRUB legacy package to support ext4.
SLE apparently had and has a paid support base using Grub Legacy and wanting
EXT4 support, so because of the intertwining of SLE and openSUSE, openSUSE users
benefited from it as well.
Unlike some other distros, SLE/openSUSE maintained, and still maintain, though
incompletely (their current installers do not provide an option to install Grub
Legacy, so it must be installed later if it's wanted), keeping what works
working for people who don't need everything that every upstream deems
improvement, by continuing to provide two usable Grub environments.
> IMO, it was not the right thing to do. It caused confusion among people (does
> GRUB legacy support ext4 or not ?) and delayed the adoption of GRUB 2.
Delaying adoption can be a very good thing, a selling point. Debian does it.
It's only natural to expect a distro that wants to keep its users happy to fix,
as available resources permit, known breakage that upstreams refuse to fix.
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
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