[Debootloaders-yaboot] Bug#587290: Bug#587290: How does linux-base modify /etc/yaboot.conf ?

[Rick Thomas]

Comments in-line below...

On Sep 18, 2010, at 1:34 PM, Ben Hutchings wrote:

> On Thu, 2010-09-16 at 15:44 +0200, Benjamin Cama wrote:
>> Le jeudi 16 septembre 2010 à 15:12 +0200, Benjamin Cama a écrit :
>>> You mentioned that linux-base may modify /etc/yaboot.conf. I think  
>>> it
>>> might be the culprit for this bug, but I would first like to know  
>>> how
>>> and why it does that ?
>>
>> OK, I was right, thanks to your hint: see
>> http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/kernel/dists/sid/linux-2.6/debian/linux-base.postinst

OK.  The final (I sincerely hope!) piece to the puzzle.

>>
>> The yaboot.conf is taken as if it has the lilo syntax.
>
> It does.  Compare the function cfg_get_token() between lilo (cfg.c)  
> and
> yaboot (second/cfg.c); it has been cleaned up a bit in yaboot but is
> still basically the same.

Interesting.  That explains a lot.

>
>> And this script
>> adds spaces and quotes around key/value pairs and let /dev/disk/by-*
>> names. This is not compatible with yaboot.
>
> Which of those things is not compatible with yaboot?


It's not yaboot per-se that is incompatible.  The extra quotes and  
spaces mess up the "ybin" script which is used in installing yaboot.   
My patch fixes that specific problem (and a couple of other specific  
problems) in a very non-general way.  I'd recommend a complete rewrite  
of ybin (at least) if you want to make it work for general lilo-like  
syntax.


>
>> I also saw that you filled this bug:
>> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=581173 which make me
>> think that your approach is to adapt every bootloader to this syntax.
> [...]
>
> I filed that bug because elilo.sh is not consistent with ELILO itself.
>
> Ben.
>
> -- 
> Ben Hutchings
> Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.