Bug#1056764: grub-efi-amd64: can't boot with GRUB 2.12~rc1-12

[Nicolas Haller]

On 2024-01-23 08:15, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> Control: severity -1 important
> 
> On Sat, Nov 25, 2023 at 05:36:41PM -0500, Nicolas Haller wrote:
>> Package: grub-efi-amd64
>> Version: 2.06-13
>> Severity: critical
>> Justification: breaks the whole system
>>
>> Dear Maintainer,
>>
>> My old laptop (Lenovo 11e) runs Sid and all was right before I updated
>> it the other day (I don't do that very often). After that upgrade, GRUB
>> wasn't able to load any kernel with the pretty much generic error
>> "Error: can't load image". The version of GRUB was 2.12~rc1-12.
>> If I try to boot again, GRUB tells me that I need to load the image
>> first (I guess it somehow ignores the linux command and sends that when
>> trying to load the initrd).
> 
> I'm downgrading this bug severity, as a single system regressing in
> boot ability is not release critical. It is not possible for us to
> ensure that grub continues working on every single device out there,
> this grub will work for more hardware than previous grubs, and blocking
> the transition to testing because it doesn't work on your 11e is not
> helping anyone.
> 
> We have now also uploaded 2.12-1 and of course we welcome any patches,
> but an old Lenovo 11e is not a priority, and we don't have any to test
> ourselves.
> -- 
> debian developer - deb.li/jak | jak-linux.org - free software dev
> ubuntu core developer                              i speak de, en
> 

Hello Julian,

I'm not sure why the aggressive tone here, I was asked if this bug 
breaks my system and it does. How you want to handle this is up to you.
I think GRUB is a critical piece of a Linux system and I thought it was 
worth to report the issue I encounter.

As I mentioned, my Lenovo isn't the newest one but it's not an esoteric 
hardware either. It's a pretty regular amd64 laptop.

To be honest, I'm a bit concerned that GRUB failed where it wasn't 
before (I would called that a regression) but also that it fails without 
giving any error message or any kind of clue that could help to debug this.

I'm not a debian or ubuntu core developer and I don't know the first 
thing about how to develop or debug a boot loader. Asking me for patches 
isn't helping anyone.

If you have any suggestion in order to fix or just to diagnose the 
issue, feel free to share that with me. Meanwhile, I'll try 2.12.1 and 
look for an upgrade as Jeremy suggested.

Have a nice day,

-- 
Nicolas Haller