From: Michael Leuchtenburg Date: 16:40 on 04 Apr 2007 Subject: Ubuntu's update-grub So, here I am, trying out Ubuntu since I've heard it's all "easy to administer". I love the control Gentoo gives me, but I don't need it everywhere, right? More work for not much benefit, I think. After a few days of wrestling with Ubuntu's installer (which is so simple that if even the slightest thing goes wrong, it chokes and doesn't bother to inform the user of this, even in "expert" mode), I'm able to get it installed and booting. "Now comes the easy administration!", I think. Then I meet Ubuntu's update-grub. update-grub is a handy-dandy script which edits your grub/menu.lst when you, say, install a new kernel. Useful, huh? Except it seems to be putting in some options I don't like: quiet and splash. So I edit it out. Huh, it's put them back? Okay, let's check the manpage. Okay, it mentions a bunch of weird commented out options which it's then going to parse. It doesn't mention the one I need to change, but there's defoptions in the file, and it's all changed and happylike. Except that it's back when I run it again. Not only is it back, but it has handily edited defoptions for me to have splash and quiet in them. YOU WILL HAVE THESE OPTIONS. COMPLY. COMPLY. The script is a hackish shell monstrosity which repeatedly parses the doubly-commented options, adds their values to some defaults which you can't configure, and then resets every option back to whatever idiotic defaults someone out there thinks that everyone who runs Ubuntu should use, whether they want to or not. Who writes this shit? Whatever happened to the idea of configuration files being things that users edited, and programs followed?
From: Andrew Black - lists Date: 03:14 on 05 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Ubuntu's update-grub Michael Leuchtenburg wrote: > After a few days of wrestling with Ubuntu's installer (which is so > simple that if even the slightest thing goes wrong, it chokes and > doesn't bother to inform the user of this, even in "expert" mode) Sound's a bit like Micro$oft type error message "something has gone wrong, I don't know what but maybe the drive needs reformatting". Yep, I am sure my IT dept at work would rather reformat their whole SAN array before I test whether my VPN connection is still in place :-) > Then I meet Ubuntu's update-grub. update-grub is a handy-dandy script > which edits your grub/menu.lst when you, say, install a new kernel. > Useful, huh? Except it seems to be putting in some options I don't like: > quiet and splash. I have 2 ubuntu machines, 1 dapper that boots "loud" and in text mode (good), one edgy that is (IIRC) quiet and splashy. At least all it tells me that I need to change the resolution of the computer, no useful info. I think I will take a BU of the menu.lst and hack out the lines that make it easy for corrupt-grub to change it and difficult for me to understand what the F the file is doing. > The script is a hackish shell monstrosity which repeatedly parses the > doubly-commented options, adds their values to some defaults which you > can't configure, and then resets every option back to whatever idiotic > defaults someone out there thinks that everyone who runs Ubuntu should > use, whether they want to or not. > > Who writes this shit? Whatever happened to the idea of configuration > files being things that users edited, and programs followed? And how do I stop corrupt-grub from ever running ever again?
From: Michael Leuchtenburg Date: 03:53 on 05 Apr 2007 Subject: Re: Ubuntu's update-grub Spake Andrew Black - lists: > Michael Leuchtenburg wrote: > > >After a few days of wrestling with Ubuntu's installer (which is so > >simple that if even the slightest thing goes wrong, it chokes and > >doesn't bother to inform the user of this, even in "expert" mode) > > Sound's a bit like Micro$oft type error message "something has gone > wrong, I don't know what but maybe the drive needs reformatting". Yep, > I am sure my IT dept at work would rather reformat their whole SAN array > before I test whether my VPN connection is still in place :-) Oh no, it's worse than that. It doesn't give an error message at all. It's "helpfully" hidden from the user and not even logged to a file, even if you tell it to be needlessly verbose in its logging. Instead, it just sits there claiming to be working, forever. > And how do I stop corrupt-grub from ever running ever again? Edit /etc/kernel-img.conf. And then hope that there isn't an update-kernel-img script which reads and resets it.
Generated at 10:26 on 16 Apr 2008 by mariachi