Re: Upgrade to F30 gone wrong

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On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 12:31 PM Sam Varshavchik <mrsam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Chris Murphy writes:
>
> > Actually, that's a problem too. The stale bootloader problem goes back
> > to an era where it was possible to install the bootloader into the
> > first sector of the boot partition, and in those cases, /dev/sda1 is
> > actually valid. And again, no practical way to discover this
> > automatically in advance.
>
> It would be useful to have dnf system-upgrade emit a "say, you may need to
> X first" message, before initiating a reboot, with an opportunity to bail
> out. Just like the existing message that tells you to update the current
> system first, before initiating an upgrade.

The reminder to update the current system applies to everyone. Whereas
the mitigation for this bug is for specific configurations that the
plug-in can't test for, and for other configurations it's not good
advice. Suggesting UEFI users run 'grub2-install' will have two
possible outcomes: non-standard GRUB behavior if the command works;
and confusion if 'grub2-install' doesn't work because it isn't
present. Either way, it's bad advice because that's a bad UX.

While handling this bug with a Common Bugs report is suboptimal, it
has long been expected that users should read Common Bugs before
installing or upgrading their systems. Making that advice more
prominent might be reasonable.

> And, making this more generic, each new Fedora release could have a brief
> upgrade message tucked away in it, somewhere, that dnf system-upgrade could
> grab and show up front.

As simple as it sounds, someone has to build that and maintain it,
from upstream down to Fedora. And Fedora also supports two upgrade
mechanisms, dnf system-upgrade, and GNOME Software. And I think it's
reasonable that such messages to user space need to follow
localization guidelines, so now those messages need translation.
That's a lot of work to do when, again, we're all supposed to read
Common Bugs. It's not any different on Windows or macOS who publish
release notes, if you're very lucky they report some gotchas, but they
never do that notification in the actual upgrade tool.

The reason why this bug exists in my opinion is because we're being
too accommodating to the technical users who want linux multiboot, and
want Fedora to not step on their bootloader. I'm not convinced that's
a very good policy anymore. I personally would flip it around and
forcibly update the bootloader by assuming we own it, and if it turns
out that's the wrong assumption the injured party is a technical user
who should be familiar with linux mulit-boot madness and its esoteric
work arounds.


-- 
Chris Murphy
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