Re: [SOLVED] Re: v1.99 boot floppy freezes

[Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko]

On 15.11.2011 13:21, Robert wrote:
> Robert wrote:
>> The script below (and attached mk_fdb.sh), creates a decent
>> editable 1.4M vfat boot floppy image with Grub v1.98.
>>
>> With Grub v1.99 (ftp version from the Grub homepage, compiled on
>> Debian 6 x86) however the created boot floppy freezes after
>> printing the 5 letters "GRUB ". It does also not work when I use
>> the new "-a" flag on grub-setup.
>
>
> I retried with "-a" and now it works. "-a" really is necessary with
> v1.99.
> attached: New boot floppy creation script.
>
> Robert
>
> PS: perhaps on the last "-a" trial I had the modules wrong in
> (fd0)/boot/grub/i386-pc/ instead of (fd0)/boot/grub/  ... thus
> confusion with the many variants I tried back and forth ...
> Grub consumes 10..100x more human time than LILO, just to get 5% more
> use cases to work ;-)
Floppies are a secondary case for GRUB and the problem in this case is
that some BIOSes say you're booted from floppy when you're not. So you
need to know if you're on floppy or not.
Currently floppy case is broken until we merge module compressors.
> Overall Grub is rather fragile with that many files, progs and varying
> folders.
Many files actually contribute to robustness. An unused code (as in not
needed in your config) isn't even loaded thanks to module design. Your
problem is that you use internal tools which aren't meant to be used
directly and predictably you make mistakes. Even me, being maintainer, I
never use grub-setup directly.
>   I think, mainly missing is a sort of good consistency check at final
> grub-setup time.
your install was consistent for a hard drive. In your case GRUB wasn't
able to determine that you create a floppy image because you used loopback.

> As it was with LILO. After a lilo run, which holds everything well
> together, you get a concise short feedback, which menus are installed
> (or more verbose=1..5), and at the end of the message when without
> errors, you know that it works 99.9%.  With grub too often things hang
> loose.. dynamically by chance ..
>
If you use grub-setup directly you have only yourself to blame for
messing with internals.
>
>> I first guessed there is a bug with --force not really going into
>> decent blocklist creation as needed for this format.
>> Yet a version with "32k MBR" partitioned vfat pseudo floppy
>> (attached: mk_fdbootfat.sh), which also worked with Grub v1.98,
>> now failes too with v1.99. The same freeze. So it seems to be a
>> deeper bug.
>>
>> (This same Grub v1.99 build works when installed on an internal
>> with grub-install /dev/sda ...)
>>
>>
>> Robert
>>
>> PS: With v1.99 also the "--diet" option for creating a iso 1.4M
>> floppy image with grub-mkrescue disappeared (without error message
>> is. Why remove a existing functionality? Now I need to strip off
>> by hand.
>>
>>
>
>
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-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko

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