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List:       opensuse
Subject:    Re: [opensuse] Re: Grub bugs ... should I file separate bugs for
From:       Pit Suetterlin <P.Suetterlin () royac ! iac ! es>
Date:       2009-06-14 19:59:47
Message-ID: 20090614195947.GA665 () asterix ! royac ! iac ! es
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Linda Walsh wrote:

> 	As I mentioned in another email -- my active boot partition
> was set to my new partition -- grub ignored it.

What should grub do if you don't tell it about?  All it has in the beginning
is a 512 byte MBR.  You want code in there that looks for the bootable flag,
finds out the type of filesystem, then looks for a boot/grub/stage2 or
grub/stage2 and loads it?

No way, if you change the boot layout, you have to update the boot system, as
was explained in some other answer in this thread.

> 	AFAIK, having that option to check on the suse menu's is a bug
> by itself, since, again, as far as I know, linux ignores that flag.

So?  You might want to set it in a multiboot system because other OS need this?

> But you are right -- suse and linux should pay attention to user choice
> and if they toggle a boot flag, suse should boot from the partition the
> user has selected as bootable.  In my case, it did not.

Read above, and try to also read some info about booting in general.

> 	I again, recommend the remarkably practical actions of Ubuntu in
> this matter.  If the user chooses XFS as a file system, the default
> boot loader automatically switches to LILO.  If they user overrides this
> -- they are warned that GRUB is buggy with journaled file systems and
> may not work.  Simple as that.

We were discussing the change of a boot partition here, not installing with a
different root filesystem.  Keep that discussion to the other thread.

> 	AND please, people -- GET OFF the idea that '/boot' SHOULD be a
> separate partition.  It's 1) anachronistic, and 2) good _unix_ practice.

So?  Linux *is* a Unix-like system, in case you haven't realized.

> No one from the Win-world puts their Win boot files {IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS,
> NTDETECT.COM, boot.ini, AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, ntldr} files on a separate
> partition.  

Oh, now THAT is of course an explanation why we shouldn't do it .... NOT!

> To even think about such an absurdity would get you laughed at.  

Yes, I laugh at many things that Win-Users do 'cause they don't know better.

> It's not normal.  Very few even move or touch the default settings
> for their Pagefile.sys.  That linux "requires" these things for a
> "proper" install  is just something else that makes linux a PITA for new
> or the *majority* of users who are casual users.

Especially as - coming back to your mixing of threads - Win-Users are the
typical ones that will want to install their system on an XFS partition...

> 	I also do the standard partitioning thing -- migrating over the
> years based on OS and disk-constraints, but why not use XFS for
> everything?  It requires no fsck.  Is just fine for nearly all general
> user purposes -- it's robust and space efficient.  

For many small files - not really.  I prefer reiser for the system and XFS for
data partitions, but that only as a side note...

> 	Leave the optimizations for the experts.  Default to simplicity
> but allow the other options (that's Window's pain -- to often they don't 
> allow anything but the simple options)...

So what now?  You complain that Win doesn't allow you to shoot your foot.  But
when YaST offers this possibility, and you shoot your foot, you complain, too?

I really don't understand what you want.....

  Pit

-- 
Dr. Peter "Pit" Suetterlin                 http://www.astro.su.se/~pit
Institute for Solar Physics
Tel.: +34 922 405 590  (Spain)             P.Suetterlin@royac.iac.es
      +46 8 5537 8534  (Sweden)            Peter.Suetterlin@astro.su.se
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