[Debootloaders-yaboot] Bug#587290: How does linux-base modify /etc/yaboot.conf ?

[Benjamin Cama]

Le jeudi 16 septembre 2010 à 15:12 +0200, Benjamin Cama a écrit :
> You mentioned that linux-base may modify /etc/yaboot.conf. I think it
> might be the culprit for this bug, but I would first like to know how
> and why it does that ?

OK, I was right, thanks to your hint: see
http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/kernel/dists/sid/linux-2.6/debian/linux-base.postinst

The yaboot.conf is taken as if it has the lilo syntax. And this script
adds spaces and quotes around key/value pairs and let /dev/disk/by-*
names. This is not compatible with yaboot.

I also saw that you filled this bug:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=581173 which make me
think that your approach is to adapt every bootloader to this syntax.

The problem is, not every bootloader maintainers or volunteer
contributors have the resources to do so. Yaboot has not changed in 4
years, and even if Rick Thomas submitted a patch to handle that, I am
not sure anything will be eventually integrated (I sent an email earlier
on debian-ppc list to ask if someone would volunteer to take over yaboot
maintenance, as the maintainers are unresponsive for so long).

Furthermore, this change affected a lot of users since at least last
may, and I just found it now ! In between, this was a major disruption
for Debian on PPC (3 persons reported being affected by this bug, which
is quite a lot for our architecture).

Could you tell us (I Cc'ed debian-ppc) your view on this problem ? Is
the workaround for 581173 I see in the code (removing spaces) a good
idea to apply quickly to fix this bug too ?

Thanks,
benjamin