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

[Nicolas Haller]

Hello Mate,

As per Jeremy suggestion, I switched to BIOS/grub-pc and I'm now able to 
boot my system. I guess this is not super ideal so I'll let you decide 
if you want to keep this bug open or not.

If you need a tester for your idea, I can revert my system to UEFI and 
give it a try whenever it's ready.

Thanks,

-- 
Nicolas Haller


On 2024-01-25 03:22, Mate Kukri wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> An idea for a workaround I have on such machines is to add an
> environment variable (or some other option) to GRUB that let's GRUB
> use the legacy-x86 kernel entry point even if the EFI stub appears
> supported (of course only with UEFI Secure Boot disabled).
> 
> Based on previous discussion, it unfortunately seems that this isn't
> strictly a GRUB issue, and the problem comes from GRUB switching
> to booting the kernel using the method now preferred by upstream.
> 
> Mate
> 
> On Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 2:21 AM Nicolas Haller <nicolas at boiteameuh.org> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>
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>