From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1OXbu1-000457-Ut for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:23:41 -0400 Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=47262 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OXbtz-00044r-60 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:23:40 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OXbty-0006Eo-6J for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:23:39 -0400 Received: from toccata.ens-lyon.org ([140.77.166.68]:60969) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OXbty-0006EV-0R for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:23:38 -0400 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by toccata.ens-lyon.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 526A884084 for ; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 17:23:36 +0200 (CEST) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at toccata.ens-lyon.org Received: from toccata.ens-lyon.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (toccata.ens-lyon.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id gVzozkY0khSB for ; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 17:23:36 +0200 (CEST) Received: from const.ipv6 (u0041.users.bdx.rmll.info [109.229.162.41]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by toccata.ens-lyon.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 251EE84072 for ; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 17:23:36 +0200 (CEST) Received: from samy by const.ipv6 with local (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1OXUDK-00013I-97 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 09:11:06 +0200 Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 09:11:06 +0200 From: Samuel Thibault To: grub-devel@gnu.org Message-ID: <20100710071106.GA3981@const> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.12-2006-07-14 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 1) Subject: Avoiding best-effort X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:23:40 -0000 Hello, There's a concern with the way grub menu entries work: even if a command fails, grub continues with others, like bash's "best-effort" way. This leads to difficult-to-diagnose results: say for instance multiboot /boot/mykernel module /boot/initrd module /boot/inittask and initrd is too big for the memory for instance. The actual error message that the user will be able to read is "rd0: no such device", because grub will silently ignore the initrd load failure. It'd be better to at least have a way to show the actual error. I've talked a bit with phcoder, the kind of solutions we've come with are - "set -e" command, to disable best-effort - shell-like "&&" to chain commands only if they succeed - introduce a small delay when printing error messages, to keep best effort while still showing the actual grub error. Thoughts? Samuel