Grub or Grub2?

[wobo]

In the field of current discussions about the technical future of Mageia ("Technical specs for Mageia 2") there are some decisions to take which are more prominent than the usual "will we have foo.bar v 1045.2 in Mageia 2 please". Besides the well known topics "Release type & cycle" (which is almost decided) and "Gnome2 or not" (which is already decided) there is one more topic which may be of interest: Should Mageia stay with the "traditional" grub as we know it or should we migrate to grub2 which is used by Ubuntu and caused many problems in its compatibility with other distributions using the traditional grub?

Discussion has just begun on the mageia-dev mailing list: https://www.mageia.org/pipermail/mageia ... 06541.html :

Grub 2 is coming now regularly in proposals. What should we do about it :
- Stay with Grub 1 - pb ? maintainance ? restrictions ?
- Switch to Grub 2 : smooth migration, tests, integration...
- another alternative ?

As usual, comments, proposals...

See also https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2121

[isadora]

In this case i really wonder, what are the advantages.
Searching for it on the internet doesn't give me many reasons to "fix what ain't broken".
Grub in it's state right now, is doing what i expect from a bootloader, it loads the system.

[wobo]

I guess most requests come from Ubuntu users who want Mageia as second Linux (may be migrate after testing) or other users who want Ubuntu as second Linux for some reason. On the other hand, we are talking about a target which is 9 months away. It may be that 9 months from now Grub2 will be the bootloader of choice for more than one distribution and Mageia would then stick out as being the outdated loser.

So, IMHO [see disclaimer] it is a good idea to migrate now in Cauldron, so we do have a long testing stage available, and still keep grub (traditional) as an option for users who want it. This matches exactly with the opinion of José, who wrote in the mailing list discussion:

We can switch Cauldron now, to get massive tests, now that KDM knows it.
I feel it is specially important that drakboot, gdm and kdm work nicely with
it (ie. no regression).
- Test also multiboot with Ubuntu and Fedora (auto-detection)
And still keep GRUB1 till Mageia 3, to have a simple go back avalaible for
people who will have problems with GRUB2.

Disclaimer:
Mind that my opinion does not matter here because I was told by a mageia developper that it is hopeless to discuss technical topics with me.

[isadora]

Sounds to me as a very reasonable approach, GRUB2 in Cauldron.

Eventually we won't have any choice, and follow the developments.
And where we do this for all objects in the system, this will also be the case for GRUB(2).

[dave]

grub 2 for life

[ennael]

Solution is not that easy . We still have some pb with Grub2. But Grub1 is nearly not maintained anymore. And current code version is almost as big as the patches integrated to fix common bugs.

[wobo]

In the light of these facts it may be a better option what misc wrote in the -dev list:

I think we should offer support for it, ie package, patch the tools
( given the fact that 5 people are ready to do the switch, I guess they are
all eager to help on creating a proper package ).

But not do a change in the default before Mageia 3. While Grub 2 is working
fine ( I use it since 3 years ), there was people complaining about this on ubuntu ( because
this changed their habits, because the documentation was sparse ) to warrant
not rushing the change. We value quality, and so we can offer grub2 as a option,
and make sure it got enough test, even by people on the stable release before deciding.

IE, without any test, we should not change, so I would set a deadline to have grub2
ready before saying "we switch".

[s106660]

In my experience the only real complaint with grub2 is change of configuration file so changing default to grub2 requires a good way to manage that file. Maybe the coming kde grub2 support will be the answer. Not many normal users edit either menu.lst or grub.cfg by hand so they need a gui.

[wobo]

There has been a GUI in MCC for years, no need to add yet another one. Besides, there are still a handful of Gnome users around

Anyhow, nobody really denies that grub2 is coming. But as misc and others I'd recommend to go easy on that change, don't rush it, and keep grub1 for a while as an option.

[isadora]

Which means MCC needs to be made prepared for handling the grub.cfg, when GRUB2 is introduced.

[zooplah]

In this case i really wonder, what are the advantages.
Searching for it on the internet doesn't give me many reasons to "fix what ain't broken".
Grub in it's state right now, is doing what i expect from a bootloader, it loads the system.

Well, I'm in favor of upgrading to GRUB 2 for the same reason that Mandriva obviously felt compelled to switch from LILO to GRUB in the first place: sticking with an unmaintained boot loader is probably not the best idea. I never really liked GRUB, though; it did its job, in a slow, clunky, fugly way. GRUB 2 can only be an improvement, I guess (plus, I really like the i18n improvements in GRUB 2, but I have no idea how it's possible to locate the MO files before the filesystem has loaded; I suppose they've figured it out, but it's over my head).

[ghmitch]

As zooplah correctly points out, grub is unmaintained and there are no plans to maintain it in the future. Moving to grub2 WILL be necessary to support stuff out in the future. The current version of grub has problems with BtrFS (it can't boot a BtrFS root partition) and with GPT (it can't boot a GPT partitioned drive). These are just two serious shortcomings. BtrFS is the file system that many of us are waiting for since is solves a *lot* of file system problems, *especially* ability to scale to larger drives while better protecting data integrity. Global Partition Table is *required* to scale to larger hard drives efficiently. The old MS partitioning system has trouble with even todays larger hard drives and hard drive technology is continuing to move forward at a rapid pace with ever larger drives becoming common. This is probably why Ubuntu has chosen to make the leap to grub2. I think this is the next leap that should be addressed. I really *DON'T* want to see Mageia become like Mandriva and become unreliable due to unconstrained innovation. Mageia is just hugely stable compared to Mandriva and I really, really value that. But if we don't address this grub issue, it will trip us up later and require multiple technology leaps at the same time which will prove even more painful. - George

[PiElle]

Grub 2!
Have been using it for years in Ubuntu without problems.
On the other hand, other main Distros are shifting to Grub 2 (like, for instance, Fedora 16) ...

[ghmitch]

What is really going to drive Linux distros to switch to grub2 is the fact that Microsoft is no longer supporting system BIOS on OEM products period! If the motherboard has a BIOS, it no longer can display the Windows logo. This means that all the major OEMs are going to move to UEFI mobos and neither grub nor lilo support UEFI and neither ever will. So beginning sometime soon people will start complaining that they can't load Linux on their box because their distro has not moved to grub2. In addition UEFI does NOT support the traditional MS partitioning schema. It ONLY supports GPT and GPT provides nowhere for grub to reside on the hard disk. Instead grub must now reside on the mobo itself in firmware. Complicating all of this is the fact that MS will REQUIRE all OEMs to provide secure boot in which the motherboard must be provided a security key from the OS or the bootloader in order to allow the system to boot. This is to prevent boot level malware from infecting a system. It may also be used by MS to enforce DRM since it would be very handy in that regard as well. There will *likely* be a way to disable it via a motherboard option. If not, hopefully bootloaders like grub2 will be exempted and cleared on the basis of their unique signature (md5 etc). In any case these soon to arrive systems will REQUIRE grub2, no work around available.

Here is the latest on the UEFI situation: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/23/ms_denies_uefi_lock_in/

[doktor5000]

Microsoft will not Require OEMs to use secure boot, they will still allow
for disabling Secure Boot, and they will also support classic BIOS.

Sorry, please get your facts straight, and please don't spread FUD.
Most of your statements are exaggerated and some are simply not true.

[firefly]

Hello All,
i support grub2, eventually all distros will change to grub2.(makes dual booting easier)
regards.

[Germ]

I say stick with grub for as long as it does what we need it to do.

[mla]

Me, I don't care whether it is grub or grub2, as long as (a) the resulting menu is easy to maintain by hand, (b) it does not cause me problems with my highly multi-boot machine. Current grub satisfies both of these requirements. I expect grub2 *could* do so too, but only if it is implemented well and that includes providing an easy migration path to pre-existing multi-boot installations.

Case in point... I recently decided to have a look at Linux Mint, just to see what that was all about. And it just went ahead and installed grub2 in my master boot record, plus got the drive order wrong, with the result of the machine becoming completely unbootable.

This would not have happened on Mageia, of course, which is one of the reasons I am fairly relaxed about the prospect of grub2 -- if necessary I can simply chain-load to it from my current setup. What does worry me, though, is the tendency to off-load custom grub2 menu items to a file in /etc/grub.d, since /etc is of necessity local to a given OS. The whole point of grub menus to me is that they can live on a small partition which is mounted by every one of my OS instances.

So, yes, I can see why Mageia folk do not want to be stuck with the unsupported grub. But *please* give a lot of thought to implementing grub2!

[ghmitch]

Microsoft will not Require OEMs to use secure boot, they will still allow
for disabling Secure Boot, and they will also support classic BIOS.

Sorry, please get your facts straight, and please don't spread FUD.
Most of your statements are exaggerated and some are simply not true.

I did NOT say that Windows 8 would not boot on classic BIOS boards, I said that MS will not *support* classic BIOS boards. Microsoft HAS said that OEMs will NOT be allowed to use the Windows logo on systems that do not support secure boot. They have also said that they strongly advise users NOT to use anything else. That equals "no support". Secondly, there is NO WAY that classic BIOS can offer secure boot, therefore all mainstream mobos from here on are NOT going to use classic BIOS. Over the next couple of years you will see classic BIOS boards disappearing left and right as mobo vendors move on to EFI and EFI will NOT boot with grub. The sky is certainly NOT falling, but distros that fail to keep up will pay the price.

If you think I am "spreading FUD", here is a quote from a lead developer at Red Hat:

"Microsoft is mandating the use of the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) secure boot-loading capability with Windows 8 in such a way that "the end user is no longer in control of their PC," charged Red Hat developer Matthew Garrett in a blog entry posted Friday."

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/240480/microsoft_red_hat_spar_over_secure_bootloading_tech.html

So think twice before you start accusing people of "not getting their facts straight".

[ghmitch]

In response to wobo's post on the btrfs thread, I have done some more looking at the grub v grub2 situation. What I have found out is that although legacy grub does NOT support UEFI, Red Hat has been producing a series of patches that allow it to do so. So I am assuming that the grub being shipped with Mageia includes those patches, thus allowing UEFI support. I just checked a major local motherboard vendor and a total of 62 of there current motherboard offerings are UEFI boards. So UEFI support is extremely important and apparently it IS there. That resolves my major concern regarding this issue. However, I am also seeing that Fedora 16, the next release, is going to be shifting from legacy grub to grub2. That will likely mean no more updates on legacy grub from Red Hat. I have already clearly stated that I DON'T want to see Mageia shifting to grub2 at the risk of instability. But I do think there is an urgency to be on top of this situation. One thing that Ubuntu wisely did in their transition to grub2 was to ensure that ONLY new installs use grub2. All upgrades leave the users with their old legacy grub. I think that is a very wise way to do it. But I would suggest that following Fedora probably at the Mageia 3 point would seem to me to be the best time to make this move (for new installs only of course). Much of the problems related to switching from grub to grub2 occur with upgrades. Of course much of all Linux problems occur with upgrades.

Here is the link to the Fedora 16 grub2 discussion page. Lots on interesting information. From reading it you get the picture that in the midst of a rapidly evolving hardware environment, legacy grub became obsolete long before grub2 was really ready. This is the huge frustration. But apparently the Fedora devs feel that the time is here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Grub2

[doktor5000]

Some hints:

Shouting does not make you more right. I still stand by my post.
You shouldn't spread fear, uncertainty or doubts before anything is really implemented.
You know about the major hype back in the days about DRM and TPM modules and hardware lock-in?
People did the same back then, and look what happened: Nothing big, no big lock-in.
Also no major implementations of TPM modules in home user market so far, and
even for business models not really widespread and even less used.

Also, you can advocate as much for whatever, that does not speed up/help Mageia development in any way.
Sorry to say this, but you know, talk is cheap. Don't want to offend you personally, though.
Just the message of your post.

[ghmitch]

doktor, My main concern on the issue of grub legacy v grub2 was simply to get all of the information on the table. At this point, I think I have been the only one to actually include links to either backup or clarify my position on the issue. Some things at this point regarding the secure boot aspect are not really clear which is why I used the word "may" in relation to DRM. I also stated that grub legacy does not support UEFI which I later discovered was incorrect. As soon as I learned that was incorrect, I posted a correction and would correct the previous post if that were possible. There are a few points on which we disagree which are largely based on how one interprets the word "support". If you can back up any of your assertions with links, that would be helpful. But lets get it out in the open and not simply stick our heads in the sand. The reality is that grub2 is simply inevitable. The only question is when. I don't think tomorrow is the correct answer to that question but I think that whatever the answer is, it needs to be discussed openly and carefully thought out. My suggestion is that Mageia follow Red Hat. My reasoning for that is that 1) When Red Hat makes their move they will no longer be providing support for grub legacy, 2) Red Hat hopefully will work out even more conversion issues than Ubuntu (and Debian) has already resolved, and 3) Red Hat conversion will likely precipitate a larger migration to grub2 among other major distros. If the change is implemented to affect only *new* installs, existing grub legacy configurations should not be effected, thus the whole process should be fairly transparent to users. I know a lot of users are tired of continual change, but hardware is not going to stop changing and grub is an example of software that sits right on top of hardware and it is going to have to change to keep up with hardware. It has in fact been changing all along, but not really keeping up. The grub developers threw in the towel on grub legacy, then Debian/Ubuntu, and now Red Hat. In the end, one either accepts change or gets buried by it. I think the first is the better choice. - George

[doktor5000]

My point was only about spreading "rumors" when nothing is yet set in stone.
You care about this topic, also corrected your statements like you said,
that is fully OK and that's also good practice.

But to be honest, actually i don't want to discuss this special topic "UEFI / secure boot"
any more, we also had some similar discussion in mandrivauser.de forum, and there's
a major part of FUD and some parts of dangerous half-knowledge involved. Which makes
quite a problematic mixture, and me a little angry, when only trying to prevent such FUD.
So i'm a little exhausted about this topic.

I'm sorry to have accused you of this, but your posting to which i answered first just rang
my FUD alarm bells, hope you don't resent on that (hope that's the right wording for it in english) anymore.

Sorry for the noise, on with the regular business.

[firefly]

Hello ghmitch,
i hope your explanation will strengthen the request for Grub2.