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Hi, |
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|
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The base-system project would like to put forward a plan to sunset GRUB |
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Legacy, sys-boot/grub:0 (grub-0.97). |
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|
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What does this cover? |
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--------------------- |
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- sys-boot/grub:0 |
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- sys-boot/grub-static |
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|
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What does this NOT cover? |
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------------------------- |
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- sys-boot/grub:2 |
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- app-emulation/xen-pvgrub [1] |
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- app-emulation/grub-xen-host [1] |
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|
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Why should it go? |
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----------------- |
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- No longer supported by upstream |
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- no upstream fixes at all for 5+ years |
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- very fragile to toolchain changes. |
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|
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Why does it need to stay at all? |
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-------------------------------- |
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- grub:0 is still used by legacy systems where the upgrade is |
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non-trivial (eg. re-partitioning), or not supported (eg. vendor |
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clouds) |
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- grub-static was heavily used in specific profiles [2] where the build |
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system produced a grub that didn't work properly. I think (but would |
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like confirmation) that the grub-static use cases are no longer in |
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use. |
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|
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What are other distributions doing? |
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----------------------------------- |
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- Ubuntu shipped both versions of grub for Xenial, but dropped them |
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entirely for Zesty & Artful. |
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- Debian: still offers grub-legacy, but defaults to grub-2. |
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- Fedora: hasn't shipped grub-0 in years. |
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- CentOS: 6 ships grub-0.97 only, 7 ships grub2 only. |
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|
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The plan: |
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--------- |
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- To the extent possible, no new installs should use grub:0. |
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- package.mask grub:0 |
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- Last-rite grub-static if not needed. |
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- No new functionality will be accepted |
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- Outstanding feature patches/bugs will be closed (e.g. btrfs, tpm) |
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- Fixes to keep it building correctly will be accepted (e.g. gcc-6) |
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- base-system, as a project, will only maintain grub:2 from this point |
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forward. |
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- metadata.xml will mark base-system as maintaining grub:2 only. |
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- metadata.xml will list explicit grub:0 maintainers. |
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- This is only available while there is sufficient skilled |
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manpower/maintainers. |
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|
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Open questions: |
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-------------- |
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- Are there more maintainers willing to put their name in the hat? |
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- Are there existing use cases that I've missed, where migration to |
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grub-2 CANNOT be done? |
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- Are there other use cases that need grub-static? |
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|
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[1] app-emulation/xen-pvgrub & app-emulation/grub-xen-host are |
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maintained by the Xen project. app-emulation/xen-pvgrub is the grub:0 |
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part, and probably also deserving of sunset. app-emulation/grub-xen-host |
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depends on grub:2 and builds a specific config. |
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[2] hardened, no-multilib, mixed 64-bit kernel/32-ul systems. |
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|
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-- |
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Robin Hugh Johnson |
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Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Asst. Treasurer |
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E-Mail : robbat2@g.o |
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GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85 |
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GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136 |
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