On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 02:53:11PM -0400, Doug Ledford wrote: > This is incorrect. The whole reason the stage1.5 portion is an fs > compatible reader is so that you can update the stage2 file and it > will pick the changes up without needing to be reinstalled. This is > also born out by the fact that on package update, there is no %post > action in the spec to reinstall the mbr and stage 1.5 files even > though the stage2 file likely just changed. We never update the stage 2 file without reinstalling the mbr and stage 1.5. The output of rpm -qf grub may be instructive. > > I don't see where compatibility issues come into it. If > > you're using the code as you're meant to use the code then you'll > > always > > be safe. If you're not, it's not guaranteed to be safe. > > Like I said, not true. The grub package is designed to be updateable > without requiring an mbr reinstall. What's more is I had a look at > the stage1.[hS] files in the grub shipped in FC-1 and RHEL-5, and just > like I said, they are indeed binary compatible. So even if the grub > user space application pulls its MBR from a statically linked copy of > the MBR, it will still work with pretty much any stage1.5 or stage2 > you find in a guest. The grub package (as provided in Fedora) is not designed for that. This would be a much easier discussion to have if you stopped describing things that are manifestly true as "not true". And while it is the case that grub *is* binary compatible between every version we've ever released, it is *not* guaranteed that that remains true, or even that it's true between us and any distribution that may be installed in a guest. -- Matthew Garrett | mjg59@xxxxxxxxxxxxx -- devel mailing list devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
