Re: grub-probe seems to be having problems

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 03:02:35PM -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> This is just weird.
> 
> I run grub-probe and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
> 
> Something is giving inconsistent results.  I don't know if it is a
> problem in 2.6.32 kernel returning inconsistent data for the superblock,
> or if grub isn't correctly initializing the superblock before filling it,
> or if grub isn't actually reading the superblock properly.
> 
> Sometimes /dev/sdd2 isn't being recognized as a member of /dev/md0,
> and other times it is.

Still no idea why this is happening.

> By the way, the code in grub-install that tries to check if a PReP
> partition is empty using 'cmp' doesn't work.  It always fails.
> The suggestion it gives doesn't help.

Don't have a good fix for this yet.

> Forcing the partition to contain an elf header makes grub-install happy,
> but that's not so easy to do until you got grub already installed there.
> 
> Also a recent change to non powerpc ieee1275 in grub-install has broken
> nvsetenv, since ofpath is no longer being set on powerpc.  So boot-device
> isn't set anymore.  This worked a few weeks ago.

This seems to fix the grub-install problem:

address@hidden:~/grub2-1.99+20120320# diff -u  /root/grub/util/grub-install.in  
./util/grub-install.in
--- /root/grub/util/grub-install.in     2012-03-20 12:12:51.276823000 -0400
+++ ./util/grub-install.in      2012-03-20 15:09:20.790385732 -0400
@@ -744,6 +744,14 @@
 
         # If a install device is defined, copy the core.elf to PReP partition.
        else
+           dev="`echo $install_device | sed -e 's/\/dev\///' -e 's/[0-9]\+//'`"
+           partno="`echo $install_device | sed -e 
's/.*[^0-9]\([0-9]\+\)$/\1/'`"
+           ofpath="`$ofpathname $dev`" || {
+           # TRANSLATORS: "device tree path" is the name of the device
+            # for IEEE1275
+               gettext_printf "Couldn't find IEEE1275 device tree path for 
%s.\nYou will have to set \`boot-device' variable manually.\n" "$dev" 1>&2
+               exit 1
+           }
             if [ "$("${grub_probe}" -m "${device_map}" -d "${install_device}" 
-t msdos_parttype)" != "41" ]; then
                gettext "The chosen partition is not a PReP partition." 1>&2
                echo 1>&2


Somehow that piece ended up inside the if != ieee1275-powerpc section
(and modified to not work for the ibm powerpc way either).

-- 
Len Sorensen