grub2 confusion

[David Lehman]

On Thu, 2011-10-06 at 18:11 +0200, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Oct 2011 17:37:44 +0200, I wrote:
> 
> > Just a brief look, trying to learn a little bit prior to the decision
> > whether I want to keep GRUB2:
> 
> > The package doesn't contain /boot/grub/ but /boot/grub2/ - sigh.
> > We've had years of /etc/grub.conf -> /boot/grub/grub.conf plus
> > additional "menu.lst" symlinks, so users around the world referred
> > to either one out of three (!) possible config file paths. Now the
> > fun is being repeated with grub2... I think that is a bug.
> > 
> > /etc/grub.d/40_custom
> > AND
> > /boot/grub2/custom.cfg
> > AND
> > the documentation defaulting to /boot/grub/custom.cfg.
> > 
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/743964
> 
> After I had sent that, modified 40_custom, tested something with 41_custom,
> I've run into a related pitfall:
> 
>   # rpmls grub2|grep ^l
>   lrwxrwxrwx  /etc/grub2.cfg
>   # file /etc/grub2.cfg
>   /etc/grub2.cfg: symbolic link to `/boot/grub2/grub.cfg'
> 
> So, more symlink madness. /etc/grub2.cfg -> /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
> and it doesn't even work flawlessly:
> 
>   # grub2-mkconfig -o /etc/grub2.cfg
>   Generating grub.cfg ...

Why would you do that? You're asking for trouble specifying a symlink as
an output file unless you know the program you're running will be
appending to it instead of creating it. You know where the config
actually is, so why test fate by using a symlink? Do we need to stop
creating that symlink to prevent you from misusing it?

>   ...
>   # ls /etc/grub2.cfg 
>   /etc/grub2.cfg
>   #
> 
> WTF? It didn't _follow_ the symlink, it replaced it with a file.
> The reboot didn't use it, of course, but used the old one in /boot/grub2.
> Useless stuff.

You never told grub2 to use /etc/grub2.cfg, although I realize you were
trying to overwrite /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.

> 
> Notice how it says "Generating grub.cfg ..." when in fact it creates a
> file grub2.cfg. This is extra misleading.

It always says that regardless of the output filename you specify.
Probably a bug, albeit a cosmetic one.

> 
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/743977
> 
> -- 
> Fedora release 16 (Verne) - Linux 3.1.0-0.rc8.git0.1.fc16.x86_64
> loadavg: 0.45 0.37 0.15