From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1MbFhW-0008O6-GK for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:25:18 -0400 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MbFhU-0008NO-ET for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:25:16 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MbFhP-0008MT-BG for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:25:15 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=60844 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MbFhP-0008MQ-4z for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:25:11 -0400 Received: from smarthost01.mail.zen.net.uk ([212.23.3.140]:55145) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MbFhO-0000AQ-KT for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:25:10 -0400 Received: from [82.69.40.219] (helo=riva.pelham.vpn.ucam.org) by smarthost01.mail.zen.net.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1MbFhN-0007pM-UP for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:25:10 +0000 Received: from cjwatson by riva.pelham.vpn.ucam.org with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) for grub-devel@gnu.org id 1MbFhN-0004xO-00; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:25:09 +0100 Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:25:09 +0100 From: Colin Watson To: grub-devel@gnu.org Message-ID: <20090812152508.GZ11691@riva.ucam.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-Originating-Smarthost01-IP: [82.69.40.219] X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) Subject: grub.cfg and core.img getting out of sync X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GRUB 2 List-Id: The development of GRUB 2 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:25:16 -0000 I'm having persistent problems with grub.cfg and core.img getting out of sync. The usual pattern is: * Some shiny new feature appears in core.img * We extend grub-mkconfig to use it * User runs update-grub but not grub-install (historically a perfectly sane thing to do, and indeed basically standard practice) * grub either falls over at boot or does something odd This just bit me again today, and if it bites me it's going to bite the users of the packages I upload too. Is there any way we can do better? One thing I was thinking of is that Ubuntu's carried a patch to GRUB Legacy for some time that stores the package version at the point when grub-install was last run in /boot/grub/installed-version. If we did something like that, then grub-mkconfig could carry a bit of conditional code that says "only use this feature if the installed version of GRUB is at least ". grub-mkconfig would end up carrying a bit of bloat, but at least the bloat is in /usr, and I'm assuming that at this point things are stable enough that we won't be talking about *too* many changes. What do people think about this general approach? Thanks, -- Colin Watson [cjwatson@ubuntu.com]