Just a heads up that this can be an issue, but I'm not sure how common it is. It applies to BIOS (not UEFI) firmware, and for systems that originally had Fedora 20 or older installed and also never had 'grub2-install' issued since then. Therefore it can be prevented just by running 'grub2-install' before commencing the Fedora 30 upgrade.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F30_bugs#GRUB_boot_menu_is_not_populat...
It's worth going through all the Common Bugs.
On Tue, 2019-04-30 at 16:03 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
Just a heads up that this can be an issue, but I'm not sure how common it is. It applies to BIOS (not UEFI) firmware, and for systems that originally had Fedora 20 or older installed and also never had 'grub2-install' issued since then. Therefore it can be prevented just by running 'grub2-install' before commencing the Fedora 30 upgrade.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F30_bugs#GRUB_boot_menu_is_not_populat...
It's worth going through all the Common Bugs.
The text actually says:
So if you have an installation that has been updated since Fedora 20 or before, it is recommended to execute the grub2-install command before doing a system upgrade.
I assume that should say "... if you have an installation that has NOT been updated since Fedora 20 or before ..."
poc
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 4:17 PM Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 2019-04-30 at 16:03 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
Just a heads up that this can be an issue, but I'm not sure how common it is. It applies to BIOS (not UEFI) firmware, and for systems that originally had Fedora 20 or older installed and also never had 'grub2-install' issued since then. Therefore it can be prevented just by running 'grub2-install' before commencing the Fedora 30 upgrade.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F30_bugs#GRUB_boot_menu_is_not_populat...
It's worth going through all the Common Bugs.
The text actually says:
So if you have an installation that has been updated since Fedora 20 or before, it is recommended to execute the grub2-install command before doing a system upgrade.
I assume that should say "... if you have an installation that has NOT been updated since Fedora 20 or before ..."
Good catch. I fixed that, and made a few other clean ups, let me know if you spot any other problems.
Chris Murphy wrote:
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 4:17 PM Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 2019-04-30 at 16:03 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
Just a heads up that this can be an issue, but I'm not sure how common it is. It applies to BIOS (not UEFI) firmware, and for systems that originally had Fedora 20 or older installed and also never had 'grub2-install' issued since then. Therefore it can be prevented just by running 'grub2-install' before commencing the Fedora 30 upgrade.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F30_bugs#GRUB_boot_menu_is_not_populat...
It's worth going through all the Common Bugs.
The text actually says:
So if you have an installation that has been updated since Fedora 20 or before, it is recommended to execute the grub2-install command before doing a system upgrade.
I assume that should say "... if you have an installation that has NOT been updated since Fedora 20 or before ..."
Good catch. I fixed that, and made a few other clean ups, let me know if you spot any other problems.
I thing it was correct before, but perhaps it could still be improved. (Obviously, the wording isn't as clear as it can be or we wouldn't be having this conversation. ;)
What I took from the prior wording is that if you installed Fedora 20 or earlier and then only updated the OS since (and had not manually run grub2-update), that you would hit this bug.
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 7:21 PM Todd Zullinger tmz@pobox.com wrote:
Chris Murphy wrote:
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 4:17 PM Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 2019-04-30 at 16:03 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
Just a heads up that this can be an issue, but I'm not sure how common it is. It applies to BIOS (not UEFI) firmware, and for systems that originally had Fedora 20 or older installed and also never had 'grub2-install' issued since then. Therefore it can be prevented just by running 'grub2-install' before commencing the Fedora 30 upgrade.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F30_bugs#GRUB_boot_menu_is_not_populat...
It's worth going through all the Common Bugs.
The text actually says:
So if you have an installation that has been updated since Fedora 20 or before, it is recommended to execute the grub2-install command before doing a system upgrade.
I assume that should say "... if you have an installation that has NOT been updated since Fedora 20 or before ..."
Good catch. I fixed that, and made a few other clean ups, let me know if you spot any other problems.
I thing it was correct before, but perhaps it could still be improved. (Obviously, the wording isn't as clear as it can be or we wouldn't be having this conversation. ;)
What I took from the prior wording is that if you installed Fedora 20 or earlier and then only updated the OS since (and had not manually run grub2-update), that you would hit this bug.
It happens if the most recent 'grub2-install' happened with a Fedora 20 or older GRUB package. e.g. if you installed Fedora 20 clean, then did an OS upgrade every 6-12 months all the way through to Fedora 30, then you'd probably run into this bug. But if at any point from Fedora 21 and newer you ever did a 'grub2-install' you won't hit it.
On 5/1/19 8:24 AM, Chris Murphy wrote:
It happens if the most recent 'grub2-install' happened with a Fedora 20 or older GRUB package. e.g. if you installed Fedora 20 clean, then did an OS upgrade every 6-12 months all the way through to Fedora 30, then you'd probably run into this bug. But if at any point from Fedora 21 and newer you ever did a 'grub2-install' you won't hit it.
I am not sure if this applies in my case and don't have any possibility to check for it anymore.
The pecularity of my system, is it using a gpt formated boot disk though it being a BIOS system (Using a 1M BIOS boot partition).
Does Fedora's updater support this case? The installer does.
Ralf
On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 8:10 AM Ralf Corsepius rc040203@freenet.de wrote:
On 5/1/19 8:24 AM, Chris Murphy wrote:
It happens if the most recent 'grub2-install' happened with a Fedora 20 or older GRUB package. e.g. if you installed Fedora 20 clean, then did an OS upgrade every 6-12 months all the way through to Fedora 30, then you'd probably run into this bug. But if at any point from Fedora 21 and newer you ever did a 'grub2-install' you won't hit it.
I am not sure if this applies in my case and don't have any possibility to check for it anymore.
The pecularity of my system, is it using a gpt formated boot disk though it being a BIOS system (Using a 1M BIOS boot partition).
Does Fedora's updater support this case? The installer does.
The difference between dos- and gpt-labelled disks on bios firmware is that "core.img" is embedded in the MBR gap and in a bios-boot partition respectively.
On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 3:21 AM Todd Zullinger tmz@pobox.com wrote:
What I took from the prior wording is that if you installed Fedora 20 or earlier and then only updated the OS since (and had not manually run grub2-update), that you would hit this bug.
"grub2-install" not "grub2-update".
On 5/1/19 5:25 AM, Tom H wrote:
On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 3:21 AM Todd Zullinger tmz@pobox.com wrote:
What I took from the prior wording is that if you installed Fedora 20 or earlier and then only updated the OS since (and had not manually run grub2-update), that you would hit this bug.
"grub2-install" not "grub2-update".
Is there any way to tell just by looking for the presence or absence of any particular file or directory that you would run into this bug?
On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 12:48 PM Charles R. Dennett cdennett@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/1/19 5:25 AM, Tom H wrote:
On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 3:21 AM Todd Zullinger tmz@pobox.com wrote:
What I took from the prior wording is that if you installed Fedora 20 or earlier and then only updated the OS since (and had not manually run grub2-update), that you would hit this bug.
"grub2-install" not "grub2-update".
Is there any way to tell just by looking for the presence or absence of any particular file or directory that you would run into this bug?
1) The existence of "/boot/grub2/i386-pc/blscfg.mod" should be a good indication because it's an F29 addition (AFAIR). But I couldn't tell you whether the F29 version'll work correctly with the F30 version.
Unless you're multi-booting and grub's managed by another distribution, you may as well run "grub2-install /dev/...". The bug report says that it's supposed to be fragile, but it last failed for me seven years ago (more or less) with "/boot" on mdraid1. Maybe I've just been lucky...
Whether you're multi-booting or not, there's an invocation of "grub2-install" that doesn't update the MBR, "grub2-install --grub-setup=/bin/true /dev/...". In the early days of grub2 (v1.9[78]?), you could have boot problems if the versions of the modules embedded in the MBR/MBR-gap stages differed from the "/boot/grub/i386-pc" versions, but, AFAIK, this hasn't been an issue for a while.
2) You can compare the versions that are output by
grep version /boot/grub/i386-pc/modinfo.sh and grub2-probe --version
On 5/1/19 11:07 AM, Tom H wrote:
On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 12:48 PM Charles R. Dennett cdennett@gmail.com wrote:
Is there any way to tell just by looking for the presence or absence of any particular file or directory that you would run into this bug?
Unless you're multi-booting and grub's managed by another distribution, you may as well run "grub2-install /dev/...". The bug report says that it's supposed to be fragile, but it last failed for me seven years ago (more or less) with "/boot" on mdraid1. Maybe I've just been lucky...
I went ahead and run grub2-install /dev/sda and rebooted. All seems well. No changes in the boot process that I could see. I still get the kernel menu and then it boots and I get all the messages about what's starting. (I removed the rhgb and quiet option years ago. As an old retired Linux/Solaris admin I prefer to see things happening. It just makes me feel better.)
On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 7:19 PM Charles R. Dennett cdennett@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/1/19 11:07 AM, Tom H wrote:
On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 12:48 PM Charles R. Dennett cdennett@gmail.com wrote:
Is there any way to tell just by looking for the presence or absence of any particular file or directory that you would run into this bug?
Unless you're multi-booting and grub's managed by another distribution, you may as well run "grub2-install /dev/...". The bug report says that it's supposed to be fragile, but it last failed for me seven years ago (more or less) with "/boot" on mdraid1. Maybe I've just been lucky...
I went ahead and run grub2-install /dev/sda and rebooted. All seems well. No changes in the boot process that I could see. I still get the kernel menu and then it boots and I get all the messages about what's starting. (I removed the rhgb and quiet option years ago. As an old retired Linux/Solaris admin I prefer to see things happening. It just makes me feel better.)
Good :)
There shouldn't be a difference. BLS means that the grub menu's built from "/boot/loader/entries/*" instead of from a monolithic "/boor/grub2/grub.cfg".
I had to use "grub2-switch-to-blscfg" for the switch to be made, for a new install using dnf instead of anaconda. The latter might set up BLS by default (does anyone know?).
Chris Murphy writes:
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 4:17 PM Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 2019-04-30 at 16:03 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
Just a heads up that this can be an issue, but I'm not sure how common it is. It applies to BIOS (not UEFI) firmware, and for systems that originally had Fedora 20 or older installed and also never had 'grub2-install' issued since then. Therefore it can be prevented just by running 'grub2-install' before commencing the Fedora 30 upgrade.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F30_bugs#GRUB_boot_menu_is_not_populat...
It's worth going through all the Common Bugs.
The text actually says:
So if you have an installation that has been updated since Fedora 20 or before, it is recommended to execute the grub2-install command before doing a system upgrade.
I assume that should say "... if you have an installation that has NOT been updated since Fedora 20 or before ..."
Good catch. I fixed that, and made a few other clean ups, let me know if you spot any other problems.
Since grub2-install requires a parameter that specifies a boot device, it would be helpful to provide some pointers to figure out what your boot device is.
On Wed, May 1, 2019 at 2:49 AM Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 4:17 PM Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 2019-04-30 at 16:03 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
Just a heads up that this can be an issue, but I'm not sure how common it is. It applies to BIOS (not UEFI) firmware, and for systems that originally had Fedora 20 or older installed and also never had 'grub2-install' issued since then. Therefore it can be prevented just by running 'grub2-install' before commencing the Fedora 30 upgrade.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F30_bugs#GRUB_boot_menu_is_not_populat...
It's worth going through all the Common Bugs.
The text actually says:
So if you have an installation that has been updated since Fedora 20 or before, it is recommended to execute the grub2-install command before doing a system upgrade.
I assume that should say "... if you have an installation that has NOT been updated since Fedora 20 or before ..."
Good catch. I fixed that, and made a few other clean ups, let me know if you spot any other problems.
Strictly speaking, grub has been updated if you've upgraded from F20 to F30. But the grub stages and the grub modules haven't been updated.
Am 01.05.19 um 00:03 schrieb Chris Murphy:
Just a heads up that this can be an issue, but I'm not sure how common it is. It applies to BIOS (not UEFI) firmware, and for systems that originally had Fedora 20 or older installed and also never had 'grub2-install' issued since then. Therefore it can be prevented just by running 'grub2-install' before commencing the Fedora 30 upgrade.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F30_bugs#GRUB_boot_menu_is_not_populat...
It's worth going through all the Common Bugs.
I am not entirely sure about this issue and now I have read all the posts about it and this Grub 'lesson' is just not getting into me.
So far the upgrade went fine as usual in my case. And now why I am replying here. My legacy boot has Grub and instead of booting into the newest Fedora 30 kernel it boots by default into an older one from Fedora 29. I never saw this before. So I have to catch up before the Grub prompt automatically selects the second kernel in the boot menu.
Anybody experiencing this?
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Charles R. Dennett -
Chris Murphy -
David Dusanic -
Patrick O'Callaghan -
Ralf Corsepius -
Sam Varshavchik -
Todd Zullinger -
Tom H