Package: os-prober Version: 1.35 Severity: normal My Squeeze testbed system dual-boots Debian GNU/Linux and Debian GNU/kFreeBSD (installed from an October debian-installer netinst daily image). On both OSes, os-prober is pulled in by grub2, but fails to live up to its documentation (by which of course I mean the package description).
The partition layout is just: /dev/hda1 AKA ad0s1 (ext3) = i386 system /dev/hda2 AKA ad0s2 (ufs2) = kfreebsd-i386 system /dev/hda3 AKA ad0s3 (vfat) = unused "data partition" /dev/hda4 AKA ad0s4 (swap) = swap partition On the Linux side (running either 2.6.30-2-486 or a kernel-packaged 2.6.31.custom), "sudo os-prober" outputs nothing - unless I first mount the partition that has the GNU/kFreeBSD system on it, in which case it misidentifies it: /dev/hda2:Debian GNU/Linux (squeeze/sid):Debian:linux As a result, /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober either silently fails to detect anything, or outputs: Found Debian GNU/Linux (squeeze/sid) on /dev/hda2 Either way it does nothing to the generated grub.cfg. I might guess that this is because "linux-boot-prober /dev/hda2" finds nothing, but then again nor does "linux-boot-prober /dev/hda1". No, wait, my mistake: update-grub also outputs copious "debug" output to syslog. That looks like a recently-added grub2 bug, but here's a copy of the output anyway: Nov 9 12:00:07 xan 10freedos: debug: /dev/hda3 is a FAT32 partition Nov 9 12:00:07 xan 10qnx: debug: /dev/hda3 is not a QNX4 partition: exiting Nov 9 12:00:07 xan 20microsoft: debug: /dev/hda3 is a FAT32 partition Nov 9 12:00:07 xan kernel: Nov 9 12:00:07 xan kernel: >>>WARNING<<< Wrong ufstype may corrupt your filesystem, default is ufstype=old Nov 9 12:00:07 xan kernel: You didn't specify the type of your ufs filesystem Nov 9 12:00:07 xan kernel: mount -t ufs -o ufstype=sun|sunx86|44bsd|ufs2|5xbsd|old|hp|nextstep|nextstep-cd|openstep ... Nov 9 12:00:07 xan kernel: ufs_read_super: bad magic number Nov 9 12:00:07 xan macosx-prober: debug: /dev/hda3 is not an HFS+ partition: exiting Nov 9 12:00:07 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/50mounted-tests on /dev/hda1 Nov 9 12:00:07 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/50mounted-tests on /dev/hda2 Nov 9 12:00:07 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/10freedos on mounted /dev/hda3 Nov 9 12:00:07 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/10qnx on mounted /dev/hda3 Nov 9 12:00:07 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/20macosx on mounted /dev/hda3 Nov 9 12:00:07 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/20microsoft on mounted /dev/hda3 Nov 9 12:00:07 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/30utility on mounted /dev/hda3 Nov 9 12:00:08 xan 30utility: debug: /dev/hda3 is a FAT32 partition Nov 9 12:00:08 xan 50mounted-tests: debug: /dev/hda4 is a swap partition; skipping Nov 9 12:00:08 xan os-prober: debug: os detected by /usr/lib/os-probes/50mounted-tests Nov 9 12:00:08 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/50mounted-tests on /dev/hda4 Nov 9 12:00:08 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/40lsb on mounted /dev/hda3 Nov 9 12:00:08 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/70hurd on mounted /dev/hda3 Nov 9 12:00:08 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/80minix on mounted /dev/hda3 Nov 9 12:00:08 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/90linux-distro on mounted /dev/hda3 Nov 9 12:00:08 xan os-prober: debug: running /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/90solaris on mounted /dev/hda3 It obviously isn't guessing the UFS-type that d-i gave me. On the kFreeBSD side, "sudo os-prober" outputs only: Cannot find list of partitions! ...with no debug output to syslog. The same problem with identifying kFreeBSD partitions affects grub-install, which isn't a disaster because I don't really want it to lay claim to the boot sector. update-grub does at least generate a grub.cfg with a kFreeBSD boot stanza, and I can use a script on the Linux side to copy that from /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg into /boot/grub/grub.cfg... so everything boots happily. Nonetheless, it seems to me that os-prober should be able to identify Debian installs, and it isn't managing to do that here. -- System Information: Debian Release: squeeze/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (50, 'unstable') Architecture: {i386,kfreebsd-i386} (i686) Kernel: {Linux 2.6.31.custom,kFreeBSD 7.2-1-686} Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Versions of packages os-prober depends on: ii libc{6,0.1} 2.10.1-5 GNU C Library: Shared libraries os-prober recommends no packages. os-prober suggests no packages. -- no debconf information -- JBR Ankh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-boot-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org