Hi,
I am running Ubu 9.10 and seem to have just gotten a kernel update to 2.6.31-20. DebConf is asking once again "What would you like to do about MENU.LST?". I asked to look at the side to side difference between versions and it is an incredible 74 lines long. A new kernel entry takes about 5 lines.

Looking at the diff, I see that it trashed every line of the original and rewrote everything, but the new entries all appear to be wrong. Here's one:
title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.28-16-generic title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.28-16-generic
uuid e4309593-d822-4dee-bbb9-95ff07e205ec uuid e4309593-d822-4dee-bbb9-95ff07e205ec
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-16-generic root=UUID=e43 kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-16-generic root=UUID=e43
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-16-generic initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-16-generic
quiet quiet

It has the UUID twice. The root=UUID=e43 appears twice and is truncated both times. The allegedly deletable entries do not match what is actually in /boot/grub/menu.lst. And QUIET is duplicated.

Also, none of my most recent kernels are listed. /boot shows vmlinuz-2.6.31-14, 15, 17, 18 and 20. Only 14 shows up in the proposed changes.

Every time it does this, it trashes every other kernel and operating system except the one doing the updating. I like to keep a few Suses, a couple of Ubuntus and dumb old xp all working. I have 4 hard drives, multiple, 30+ GB partitions on each to hold a separate OS and a swap partition on every one.

To resurrect a mangled os, I generally have to boot with an Ubu live cd, do fdisk to find all of my partitions, do blkid to find the UUIDs (my machine will not reliably boot with /dev/sdX directives in /etc/fstab), mount the drives manually and hack the menu.lst file.

A Google on "linux boot problem" gives 13.7 MILLION hits. Many of the threads have numerous people reporting on similar difficulties. Most people would not even bother to write a post; they either reinstall or go back to windoz. We are probably looking at something on the order of a HUNDRED MILLION Linux boot disasters, and counting.

If Linux booted more reliably, perhaps more people would write drivers and programs for it and I could watch LOST without having to boot up my XP box. Starting in 1991 and clawing all the way to 1% in 19 years should be an indication that something is wrong here. At this rate, buy the year 2960, we will be the majority os!!!

Is this the single most chronic and catastrophic Linux problem ever? Is this what is limiting Linux to a ~1% market share for desktops? Worse than lack of modern drivers (8.9 mission googs)? "Linux application problem" -> 158 million. But if you can't even boot, you will never get to any applications anyway.

Or, is this a weeding feature? Anybody too stupid to even setup a boot loader should stick to windoz or buy a mac. They just muck up the forums with dumb questions anyway. Then at least the parents'-basement-dwelling, loaner, Linux lunkheads have someone to look down on? :-)

How hard would it be to write a program to scan for vmlinuzs, system.maps, initrds, find the ones which appear to be complete, poke them to see if they are alive and write a menu.lst file? How about just poking holes in an existing menu.lst to let you know that is ain't going to boot?

Google on "fixgrub program" gives 19,500 hits. Perhaps somebody has already written my program. Wouldn't it be nice if the Linux distro elves could find one which works and roll it into the OS? Every new kernel is like a dreaded microsoft patch Tuesday except they happen at random intervals.

If I "install the package maintainer's version", it will eat every other OS I have. If I "keep the local version currently installed", I won't get the new kernel. Hmmm...

Am I the only one who gets this clusterf*ck with every new kernel?

BrianP

Hi.

Linux boots reliably over here and has been doing so for years. I'm sure that those who have the skill to write drivers and programs for Linux also have the skills to either pick a distribution which doesn't try to do everything for you (and fail miserably); or go with a distribution which wants to hold your hand but know how to fix s**t when s**t breaks. Nothing's wrong, being the dominant operating system is an imaginary goal set for Linux by various FOSS newbies. It could be 0.5% -- I don't care.

That's right.

You do it.

If you are running ubuntu 9.10 do you really have a menu.lst.
I do not have a menu.lst in UBUNTU 9.10 , but I do have a GRUB.CFG .
And it is possible to remove the entries you do not need.

Ronlau,
I am using old grub 1:
[email]root@trex:/tera/bak/g2.pic.20090321b# grub --version
grub (GNU GRUB 0.97)

I have hacked the /boot/grub/menu.lst and the edits show at boot time. I have up-up-upgraded since 8.10. Maybe I am Grandfathered into grub classic? Maybe this is why the latest ubuntu update program always mangles my menu.lst file.

With every new kernel (online update requiring a reboot?), I have to do brain surgery on grub. This time I used the kde grub editor control module. It is not as horrible as doing it manually inside grub.

I have no grub.cnf
root@trex:/tera/bak/g2.pic.20090321b# updatedb; loc grub.cnf; echo done
done

I only have 1 menu.lst with the new kernel:
[email]root@trex:/tera/bak/g2.pic.20090321b# grep 2.6.31-20- `loc /menu.lst`
/boot/grub/menu.lst:title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-20-generic
/boot/grub/menu.lst:kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-20-generic root=UUID=e4309593-d822-4dee-bbb9-95ff07e205ec ro quiet splash
/boot/grub/menu.lst:initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-20-generic
/boot/grub/menu.lst:title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-20-generic (recovery mode)
/boot/grub/menu.lst:kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-20-generic root=UUID=e4309593-d822-4dee-bbb9-95ff07e205ec ro single
/boot/grub/menu.lst:initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-20-generic

Should I upgrade to grub 2? Grub 1 seems to be an extreme fragile, over-mis-engineered kludge with dos grade error messages. Error 15 my foot! Exactly which freeking file could you NOT find and where were you looking?!

Which hard drive are we talking about: hd0, /dev/sda, /dev/disk/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD3000GLFS-_WD-WXL308003092, or /dev/disk/c06dd2cb-1a34-4133-8f74-582893877c42??? This reminds me of the blind men describing an elephant.

The terminology they use is a cacophony of conflicting and confusing claptrap. It reminds me of Johnny Cash's "one piece at a time" car.

BrianP

On many systems eg RHEL /boot/grub/grub.conf (note the spelling; not grub.cnf) is the real file. menu.lst is just a symlink...

Chrism,
Only on my suse 11.2 install do I find a grub.conf:
root@trex:/tera# updatedb; loc grub.conf
/mnt/sdc2.s112/etc/grub.conf
/mnt/sdc2.s112/etc/grub.conf.old
/usr/share/kernel-package/examples/kpkg_grub.conf
/var/lib/dpkg/info/grub.conffiles

BrianP

There are more distros who do use the UUID instead of sda , sdb and so on
The UUId stays the same until you delete a partition and create it again
To find out to which partition a UUID belongs use the command sudo su ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
Yes you have to reboot after a kernel update , that goes for every distro
Should you update to GRUB2 that is up to you.
GRUB.cfg keeps as I remember it well 4 kernels , but you can delete them if you wish .
As I have more than enough space I just keep them
Off topic About Johnny Cash for me it is the Last Great American

If you were to chainload your boot it would solve a lot of your problems. The only thing that you might have to do is change the default time on your updated distro menu.lst.

If you upgrade to Karmic, you retain grub (classic) - if you install from scratch you get grub2.
grub (classic) has been stabilised for ages - hence grub2 was started. It has (IMHO) too deep an association with Debian idiosyncrasies - and as per its web page it was still beta last I looked.
Ubuntu forced it on users - no wonder they had to accept a truckload of bug reports against it.

Personally I prefer grub (classic), and have no problems upgrading any of my Ubuntu systems.

As for grub.conf, that was a kludge - predominantly Redhat although others were also at fault; Gentoo for example at various times. The grub code requires menu.lst; easy enough to change (for no sensible reason). And then use a symlink for menu.lst !!!.
Bloody stupid.