[Fwd: Re: Bug#495049: grub-pc: does not boot because module "normal" is not loaded]

[Fwd: Re: Bug#495049: grub-pc: does not boot because module "normal" is not loaded]

[Felix Zielcke]

Hello,

anyone has an idea why grub itself fails to switch from rescue to normal
mode, but just `insmod normal; normal' does work?

For me this doestn't make any sense at all.

If you want to see the initial report:
http://bugs.debian.org/495049


-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
> Von: ian_bruce@fastmail.fm
> An: Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de>
> Kopie: 495049@bugs.debian.org
> Betreff: Re: Bug#495049: grub-pc: does not boot because module
> "normal" is not loaded
> Datum: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:13:15 -0700
> 
> On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:20:53 +0200
> Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de> wrote:
> 
> > > After running "grub-install" and rebooting, grub drops into the
> > > "grub rescue>" prompt. The "pc", "lvm", and "ext2" modules are loaded,
> > > "ls" finds the root volume, and the variable "root" is set 
> > > appropriately.
> > 
> > Only the variable root or the prefix too?
> 
> Both.
> 
> > Are sure that if you boot you only type
> > 
> > insmod normal
> > normal
> > 
> > and then the menu shows? i.e. nothing before like set prefix or set
> > root?
> 
> Only those two commands. Nothing else.
> 
> > That would be very weird if GRUB set it's variables right, but still
> > fails to load grub.cfg by it's own.
> > 
> > fz@fz:~$ strings /boot/grub/core.img|grep normal
> > fz@fz:~$ 
> 
>     # strings /boot/grub/normal.mod | grep grub.cfg
>     %s/grub.cfg
>     # 
> 
> The reason it doesn't load grub.cfg is because that filename is only found
> in the "normal" module, which as I said, doesn't get loaded automatically,
> but is located without problem with the "insmod" command.
> 
> > I think that core.img doestn't contain the string `normal' is just well
> > normal, grub2 works fine for me, but I don't have LVM or RAID ;)
> 
> I don't know how the "normal" module is supposed to get loaded, but it's
> clear that it IS supposed to, and that it isn't happening here.
> 
> I don't know if the problem is related to lvm, or if it's specific to AMD64,
> or what.

Re: [Fwd: Re: Bug#495049: grub-pc: does not boot because module "normal" is not loaded]

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Donnerstag, den 14.08.2008, 18:40 +0200 schrieb Felix Zielcke:
> Hello,
> 
> anyone has an idea why grub itself fails to switch from rescue to normal
> mode, but just `insmod normal; normal' does work?
> 
> For me this doestn't make any sense at all.
> 
> If you want to see the initial report:
> http://bugs.debian.org/495049

Now finally he said that GRUB fails to rescue mode with "unknown device
fd0"
At least I didn't need to ask for this.
Maybe Robert has an idea about this and he sees the Debian bugreport
anyway.
With cross installing and so this fd0 problem was already topic on here
and I even had it myself.
But I haven't an idea about this anymore.
I thought that this shouldn't happen anymore?
And he reported against newest lenny version where this changes were
included by Robert and me.

Re: [Fwd: Re: Bug#495049: grub-pc: does not boot because module "normal" is not loaded]

[Marco Gerards]

Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de> writes:

> Am Donnerstag, den 14.08.2008, 18:40 +0200 schrieb Felix Zielcke:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> anyone has an idea why grub itself fails to switch from rescue to normal
>> mode, but just `insmod normal; normal' does work?
>> 
>> For me this doestn't make any sense at all.
>> 
>> If you want to see the initial report:
>> http://bugs.debian.org/495049
>
> Now finally he said that GRUB fails to rescue mode with "unknown device
> fd0"
> At least I didn't need to ask for this.
> Maybe Robert has an idea about this and he sees the Debian bugreport
> anyway.
> With cross installing and so this fd0 problem was already topic on here
> and I even had it myself.
> But I haven't an idea about this anymore.
> I thought that this shouldn't happen anymore?
> And he reported against newest lenny version where this changes were
> included by Robert and me.

Perhaps he simply clicked on "newest version" without bothering to
make sure?  I can image such things just happen...

--
Marco

Re: [Fwd: Re: Bug#495049: grub-pc: does not boot because module "normal" is not loaded]

[Felix Zielcke]

Hello Marco,

Am Freitag, den 15.08.2008, 16:46 +0200 schrieb Marco Gerards:

> Perhaps he simply clicked on "newest version" without bothering to
> make sure?  I can image such things just happen...

Right your not a Debian guy ;)

-- Package-specific info:
[...]

Because of this I can be sure that he used the `reportbug' or maybe the
`reportbug-ng' program/script 
I don't know anything about the -ng version except that's it's graphical
instead of console.

At least for `reportbug' I can say that it luckly get's the version
number from `dpkg'.
You don't need to find the version out yourself, or even have to choose
from a list.
But the whole things `reportbug' sends to the Debian BTS is shown in
your favourite editor where you have to add your actual bug report
before it get's send to bugs.debian.org
I hope he's just not that intelligent to choose the right severity or
make a correct bug report.
Hopefully he wasn't that smart to change the version number `reportbug'
put in the report.

Maybe he installed an earlier version and used grub-install only on that
i.e. real GRUB is outdated, but the report was made after the grub-pc
package was updated to that version.

I really hope that it's just his fault instead of that GRUB still has a
bug which can lead to this fd0 problem :((

Re: [Fwd: Re: Bug#495049: grub-pc: does not boot because module "normal" is not loaded]

[Bean]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 10:56 PM, Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de> wrote:
> Hello Marco,
>
> Am Freitag, den 15.08.2008, 16:46 +0200 schrieb Marco Gerards:
>
>> Perhaps he simply clicked on "newest version" without bothering to
>> make sure?  I can image such things just happen...
>
> Right your not a Debian guy ;)
>
> -- Package-specific info:
> [...]
>
> Because of this I can be sure that he used the `reportbug' or maybe the
> `reportbug-ng' program/script
> I don't know anything about the -ng version except that's it's graphical
> instead of console.
>
> At least for `reportbug' I can say that it luckly get's the version
> number from `dpkg'.
> You don't need to find the version out yourself, or even have to choose
> from a list.
> But the whole things `reportbug' sends to the Debian BTS is shown in
> your favourite editor where you have to add your actual bug report
> before it get's send to bugs.debian.org
> I hope he's just not that intelligent to choose the right severity or
> make a correct bug report.
> Hopefully he wasn't that smart to change the version number `reportbug'
> put in the report.
>
> Maybe he installed an earlier version and used grub-install only on that
> i.e. real GRUB is outdated, but the report was made after the grub-pc
> package was updated to that version.
>
> I really hope that it's just his fault instead of that GRUB still has a
> bug which can lead to this fd0 problem :((

Hi,
On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 10:26 PM, Felix Zielcke <fzielcke@z-51.de> wrote:
> Am Donnerstag, den 14.08.2008, 18:40 +0200 schrieb Felix Zielcke:
>> Hello,
>>
>> anyone has an idea why grub itself fails to switch from rescue to normal
>> mode, but just `insmod normal; normal' does work?
>>
>> For me this doestn't make any sense at all.
>>
>> If you want to see the initial report:
>> http://bugs.debian.org/495049
>
> Now finally he said that GRUB fails to rescue mode with "unknown device
> fd0"
> At least I didn't need to ask for this.
> Maybe Robert has an idea about this and he sees the Debian bugreport
> anyway.
> With cross installing and so this fd0 problem was already topic on here
> and I even had it myself.
> But I haven't an idea about this anymore.
> I thought that this shouldn't happen anymore?
> And he reported against newest lenny version where this changes were
> included by Robert and me.

Hi,

Just like raid, lvm needs to scan all device. I think this is caused
when it try to open (fd0), and fails. The grub_errno is not cleared,
it's carried out and cause the rescue shell. I think we can improve
the test of (fd0) so that it won't appear in machine that don' t have
floppy, or reset grub_errno in lvm scan code when error occurs.

-- 
Bean

Re: [Fwd: Re: Bug#495049: grub-pc: does not boot because module "normal" is not loaded]

[Robert Millan]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 11:00:17PM +0800, Bean wrote:
> I think we can improve
> the test of (fd0) so that it won't appear in machine that don' t have
> floppy,

That would be nice.  But are you sure this is possible with biosdisk?  Perhaps
we need hardware access like Linux does (and even then, sometimes Linux gets it
wrong).

> or reset grub_errno in lvm scan code when error occurs.

This is analogous to the small raid fix I sent two days ago.  We really need
to do this anyway, since LVM scan can fail for multiple reasons and maybe the
volume group that failed has nothing to do with the one we need for boot.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."