[Debootloaders-yaboot] Bug#797464: yaboot: Removing systemd breaks yaboot config, makes booting impossible

[Ulrich Teichert]

Package: yaboot
Version: 1.3.16-4
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

after removing systemd and replacing it with sysvinit, booting was
impossible. yaboot was starting up, but complained about a missing
device and could not proceed with booting the kernel.

It turns out that the yaboot config uses /dev/disk/by-id/* device names
in the "boot" definition. Replacing it with /dev/sdb2 in my case worked.
I'm currently booting with this yaboot.conf:

boot="/dev/sdb2"
device=/pci at 80000000/pci-bridge at d/pci-ata at 1/@ffffffffffffffff/@1
partition=3
root="UUID=9d2b9cda-5bea-4522-b2f6-3224c7b1bcfe"
timeout=100
install=/usr/lib/yaboot/yaboot
magicboot=/usr/lib/yaboot/ofboot
enablecdboot
macosx="/dev/sda10"

image=/boot/vmlinux
	label=Linux
	read-only
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img

image=/boot/vmlinux.old
	label=old
	read-only
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img.old

As you could see, I have a second disk (/dev/sdb) for Linux, leaving /dev/sda
for MacOs untouched.

I have no idea if this bug should be better assigned to the debian-installer
or systemd or a sysvinit-package or other, as the yaboot.conf file is
generated not by yaboot itself.

If both system booting styles should work in the future, perhaps even
ransitional packages systemd => sysvinit, sysvinit => systemd could be
an option, I don't know.

All I know is that I'm very grateful that I had the option to remove systemd,
even if I had to use a rescue CD to correct yaboot.conf.

Regards,
Ulrich Teichert

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.1
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: powerpc (ppc)

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-powerpc
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages yaboot depends on:
ii  libc6  2.19-18

Versions of packages yaboot recommends:
ii  hfsutils       3.2.6-13
ii  powerpc-utils  1.1.3-25

yaboot suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information