Status of GRUB / GRUB2?

Status of GRUB / GRUB2?

[Martin Baute]

Hi there,

I submitted this as bug #9640 last week, but it seems
the bug tracker isn't that well maintained, so I'll
try the mailing list now.

----

The website is very hazy on the following (crucial, IMHO)
points:

* will GRUB2 still be Multiboot compliant? Will existing
  self-written kernels have to adapt to GRUB2?

* how far away is GRUB2? What is yet to be done? Any roadmap?

That being said, you still have GRUB dangling at 0.9x, "not
been released publically", and yet being discontinued for
some "GRUB 2" that might be years off for all we (casual
visitors of your website) would know.

How can there be a GRUB *2* if there never was a GRUB *1*
to speak of? I'd expect at least a 1.0 file release - however
incomplete and inferor that version might feel for you - that
people can use and rely upon until that GRUB 2 materializes.

Just IMHO and my 0.02€ as usual.

Regards,
--
Martin Baute
solar@rootdirectory.de

Re: Status of GRUB / GRUB2?

[Marco Gerards]

"Martin Baute" <solar@rootdirectory.de> writes:

> I submitted this as bug #9640 last week, but it seems
> the bug tracker isn't that well maintained, so I'll
> try the mailing list now.

We don't use the bug tracker for GRUB 2.

> The website is very hazy on the following (crucial, IMHO)
> points:
>
> * will GRUB2 still be Multiboot compliant? Will existing
>   self-written kernels have to adapt to GRUB2?

It will be.  At the moment it is not yet fully multiboot complaint.

> * how far away is GRUB2? What is yet to be done? Any roadmap?

Things change dayly.  Just have a look at CVS and this mailinglist.
Currently a lot needs to be done.

> That being said, you still have GRUB dangling at 0.9x, "not
> been released publically", and yet being discontinued for
> some "GRUB 2" that might be years off for all we (casual
> visitors of your website) would know.

Why is that a problem?  GRUB Legacy bugs will be fixed, etc.  There
won't be any problem.  Just because something better will be written
is no reason not to use GRUB Legacy at the moment.

--
Marco

Re: Status of GRUB / GRUB2?

[Tomas Ebenlendr]

> 
> > That being said, you still have GRUB dangling at 0.9x, "not
> > been released publically", and yet being discontinued for
> > some "GRUB 2" that might be years off for all we (casual
> > visitors of your website) would know.
> 
> Why is that a problem?  GRUB Legacy bugs will be fixed, etc.  There
> won't be any problem.  Just because something better will be written
> is no reason not to use GRUB Legacy at the moment.
> 
> --
> Marco
> 

Webpage should be probably modified. I don't know how, but I think that all readres got the (wrong) feeling (here quoted by double `>') insted of the right feeling (here quoted by single `>').

-- 
                                 Tomas 'ebi' Ebenlendr
                                 http://get.to/ebik
                                 PF 2004.55711185742

Re: Status of GRUB / GRUB2?

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

On Wednesday 21 July 2004 06:13, Martin Baute wrote:
> How can there be a GRUB *2* if there never was a GRUB *1*
> to speak of? I'd expect at least a 1.0 file release - however
> incomplete and inferor that version might feel for you - that
> people can use and rely upon until that GRUB 2 materializes.

Since Macro answered other questions, I reply only to this question.

1.0 will never be released. This is because GRUB Legacy has missing 
features to be 1.0 but it is not worth developing any further. So we do 
only bugfixes and beta releases. IMHO, it is much more efficient to 
create a better boot loader (i.e. GRUB 2).

I know some people worry about version numbers too much. But what do you 
get from version numbers really? Nothing. That's why GRUB Legacy is 
used widely by many people and vendors, although the version is the 
horrible "0.9x". GRUB Legacy is not released publicly yet. So what? 
Most people do not care about version numbers anyway. They just care 
about if the software is really usable or not.

For me, version numbers are just like "date + compatibility 
information". If the major version is different, it means that 
compatibility is not perfect. If the minor version is different, it 
means that it's released at a different time.

Okuji