Proposing new dual booting release criteria

[Gene Czarcinski]

On 09/12/2014 08:18 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
> On Sep 10, 2014, at 1:25 PM, Tom Horsley<horsley1953 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> >On Wed, 10 Sep 2014 15:16:18 -0400
>> >Gene Czarcinski wrote:
>> >
>>> >>Personally, I do not use os-prober and prefer to create
>>> >>/etc/grub.d/40_custom files which use configfile to "chain-load" other
>>> >>configuration files.
>> >
>> >Me too, which is why I really really wish I could tell anaconda
>> >to create the grub2 directory and cfg file, but not try to actually
>> >install grub and screw around with the MBR and such.
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=886502
>
> Skip the 35 comments. The first two lines of the description contain the entire point. All that needs to happen for bootloader=no is insert '--grub-setup=/bin/true' as an option for grub2-install. It's actually simplifying the code path than what we currently have because everything else stays exactly the same as when bootloader=yes; and --grub-setup=/bin/true is the upstream recommended practice for this use case. So it's already well tested.
>
> It really can be fixed for Fedora 21. We know what fix is needed, and it's safe. So someone who cares about this, who knows a bit of python, should put together a patch per this:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/ReviewProcess
>
> And then also propose that bug for Fedora 21 beta freeze exception. It's virtually certain it'd pass. I mean, it probably could be incorporated without a freeze exception if it goes in before beta freeze (?) but then at least it's on a list and has some extra attention. It's a 2 year old bug, let's squash it.
>
Maybe this discussion should be moved over to the anaconda-devel-list.

Anyway, now that you have a tested way to get grub2 installed and 
configured but *not* in the MBR, it is just a SMOP to implement [SMPO => 
Small Matter Of Programming:-) ]

I think it is a bit more than that ... how do we *specify* that we do 
not what the MBR updated.  The simplest way I could think of is to use 
an anaconda boot option similar to using "extlinux" for anaconda to 
install extlinux rather than grub2.  Maybe "nombr" or "nombrupdate"?  
This would be a simple way to specify it and have things work for 
kickstart and non-kickstart installs.

Comments?

Gene