[PATCH 0/2] Revert imprudent test changes

Glenn Washburn
2025-11-19T19:12:36Z

The two commit reverted in this series degrade the GRUB tests and must be
reverted. The goal of any testing system for a project should be to find
bugs. That goal is not served by reducing test coverage, which is what
both of those commits did. Just because some (influential) users have a
different objective, such as making the test harness not error so they
can check the "GRUB tests pass" box after building, does not mean that
GRUB should override the testing goal of the project. It should be fairly
obvious when reading the results of the tests that there were issues in
running some tests and why the issue occurred. The solution to this is
not to pretend there was no issue, and the testing system should not help
the user in pretending there was no issue (no matter how much the user
would like it). These two reverted commits do just that, among other issues.
Of course, if the test requirements are so onerous that no one runs the
tests, that's also an issue, and patches are welcome to improve this.
However, due to the nature of the GRUB project and thus the kind of testing
it needs, GRUB will always require a complex testing environment. And
test coverage should not be sacrificed to simplify this environment.

I would also like to add that there is a history of certain large distros
submitting patches that are in the (percieved) interests of those distros
and not in the interests of the GRUB project or community as a whole.
In my estimation, mostly this has been due to ignorance as opposed to intent.
Regardless, I hope in the future, people working for these distros can take
off their distro hat and put on a GRUB hat before sending patches. Distros
contribute a lot of valueable work to GRUB and I would like to continue to
see high-quality patches that are in the interest of the project as a whole.

Glenn

Glenn Washburn (2):
Revert "tests: Skip tests if required tools are not available"
Revert "tests: Remove -w param from mkfs.hfsplus command"

tests/btrfs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/cpio_test.in | 2 +-
tests/erofs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/exfat_test.in | 2 +-
tests/ext234_test.in | 6 +++---
tests/f2fs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/fat_test.in | 2 +-
tests/grub_cmd_cryptomount.in | 4 ++--
tests/gzcompress_test.in | 2 +-
tests/hfs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/hfsplus_test.in | 2 +-
tests/iso9660_test.in | 2 +-
tests/jfs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/luks1_test.in | 4 ++--
tests/luks2_test.in | 4 ++--
tests/lzocompress_test.in | 2 +-
tests/minixfs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/nilfs2_test.in | 2 +-
tests/ntfs_test.in | 4 ++--
tests/partmap_test.in | 2 +-
tests/reiserfs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/romfs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/squashfs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/tar_test.in | 2 +-
tests/tpm2_key_protector_test.in | 4 ++--
tests/udf_test.in | 2 +-
tests/util/grub-fs-tester.in | 2 +-
tests/xfs_test.in | 2 +-
tests/xzcompress_test.in | 2 +-
tests/zfs_test.in | 2 +-
30 files changed, 37 insertions(+), 37 deletions(-)