I've multiple OS installed, and prefer to keep grub independent of these OSes, so it will work in any case, no matter which OS was removed/replaced by another one. For this I create /dev/sda1 with minimal possible size (55MB, FAT16), and keep /boot/grub/ directory there (and mount --bind it to gentoo's /boot/grub/ later, to have grub updated by emerge). Your decision to rename menu.lst to grub.conf and symlink it back in ebuild doesn't work in my case, because FAT doesn't support symlinks. So, each emerge grub break my system, and I've to use manually grub's command 'configfile' on next boot and after boot manually rename grub.conf back to menu.lst. In my opinion, you should either: 1) stop renaming upstream's default menu.lst, and make grub.conf symlink to menu.lst instead 2) patch grub source and replace menu.lst with grub.conf there 3) check in ebuild is target FS support symlinks before doing such destructive changes Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. put /boot/grub/ to FAT partition, say /mnt/C_DOS 2. mount --bind /mnt/C_DOS/boot/grub /boot/grub 3. emerge =sys-boot/grub-0.97-r10 Actual Results: /mnt/C_DOS/boot/grub/menu.lst will be renamed to grub.conf, but symlink /mnt/C_DOS/boot/grub/menu.lst will not be created. On next boot grub will not find it menu file. Expected Results: grub should continue working after re-emerging it, no matter of which file system used for /boot/grub/. Portage 2.1.9.25 (hardened/linux/x86, gcc-4.4.5, glibc-2.11.3-r0, 2.6.36-hardened-r9 i686) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.36-hardened-r9-i686-Intel-R-_Core-TM-2_CPU_6600_@_2.40GHz-with-gentoo-1.12.14 Timestamp of tree: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:30:01 +0000 app-shells/bash: 4.1_p9 dev-java/java-config: 2.1.11-r3 dev-lang/python: 2.6.6-r2, 3.1.3-r1 dev-util/cmake: 2.8.1-r2 sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.14-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 2.4 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.65-r1 sys-devel/automake: 1.9.6-r3, 1.10.3, 1.11.1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.20.1-r1 sys-devel/gcc: 4.4.5 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1 sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.10 sys-devel/make: 3.81-r2 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.36.1 (sys-kernel/linux-headers) ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" ACCEPT_LICENSE="*" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=prescott -O2 -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /opt/icedtea6-bin-1.9.7/jre/lib/i386/jvm.cfg /service /usr/inferno/keydb /usr/inferno/lib /usr/inferno/services /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/config /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa /var/log /var/qmail/alias /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-march=prescott -O2 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage-distfiles" EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--with-bdeps=y" FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs distlocks fixlafiles fixpackages news parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/gentoo/ http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/gentoo/ http://gentoo.telcom.net.ua/" LANG="ru_RU.UTF-8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" LINGUAS="en ru" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage-packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS="--exclude ChangeLog --delete-excluded" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/var/lib/layman/powerman /var/lib/layman/sunrise /var/lib/layman/kde-sunset /var/lib/layman/vmware /usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X Xaw3d a52 aac acl acpi aim alsa apache2 asf avi bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cddb cdr chm cli cracklib crypt cscope cue curl cxx dbus dga divx4linux djvu dlloader dri dts dvd dvdr dvdread encode fastcgi ffmpeg flac flash gd gdbm gif gnutls gpg gtk gtk2 hardened hddtemp iconv icq idn imagemagick imap imlib irc jabber javascript jpeg kde lm_sensors lzo mad mailbox mbox mmx mng modules motif mp3 mpeg msn mudflap musepack mysql ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg opengl openmp oss pam pcre perl pic png pppd pwdb python qt qt3support qt4 quicktime readline rss rtc samba sdl session spell sse sse2 ssl ssse3 svg sysfs tcltk tcpd theora tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts unicode urandom vim-pager vim-syntax vim-with-x vorbis wavpack win32codecs x86 xinetd xorg xv xvid yahoo zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="log_config vhost_alias autoindex alias rewrite dir deflate filter mime negotiation auth_basic authn_file authz_host authz_user authz_groupfile cgi actions headers env setenvif" CAMERAS="ptp2" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ubx" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en ru" LIRC_DEVICES="serial" PHP_TARGETS="php5-3" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="vesa fbdev nv nvidia" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS
I don't know if the arguments for bug 31145 are still shared by the base-system team, so I'm assigning the bug to them.
i dont mind tweaking the symlink step to ignore EPERM errors, but that's it. the request in Bug 31145 went a lot further and we arent going to cater to that extended crap.
grub:0 is gone
