Artix Linux Forum

Artix Linux => Package management => Topic started by: mrbrklyn on 27 April 2025, 08:28:03

Title: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: mrbrklyn on 27 April 2025, 08:28:03
grub update is throwing warnings
To use the new features provided in this GRUB update, it is recommended
to install it to the MBR or UEFI. Due to potential configuration
incompatibilities, it is advised to run both, installation and generation
of configuration:
      # grub-install ...
      # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg


should I do this before rebooting?
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: Artist on 27 April 2025, 11:24:12
I'm not a grub user, but to prevent 'update stress' I clone my daily driver to a vm first to test it there.

artist
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: dpx on 27 April 2025, 11:43:25
I clone my daily driver to a vm first to test it there.

Off topic, how do you do that?
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: Caramon2 on 27 April 2025, 13:12:45
grub update is throwing warnings
To use the new features provided in this GRUB update, it is recommended
to install it to the MBR or UEFI. Due to potential configuration
incompatibilities, it is advised to run both, installation and generation
of configuration:
      # grub-install ...
      # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg


should I do this before rebooting?
The same as every grub-update.

I had never a problem, but as long as you don't use "update-grub", you don't need to install the new version.
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: Caramon2 on 27 April 2025, 13:17:40
I'm not a grub user, but to prevent 'update stress' I clone my daily driver to a vm first to test it there.
Why cloning?

Just boot it in KVM with the snapshot-option on, so writes will be cached in memory, but not really written: Nothing can be harmed.
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: mrbrklyn on 27 April 2025, 17:01:11
I'm not a grub user, but to prevent 'update stress' I clone my daily driver to a vm first to test it there.

artist
I'm not a grub user, but to prevent 'update stress' I clone my daily driver to a vm first to test it there.

artist


you are using lilo?
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: Artist on 27 April 2025, 19:46:24
I'm not a grub user, but to prevent 'update stress' I clone my daily driver to a vm first to test it there.
Why cloning?

Just boot it in KVM with the snapshot-option on, so writes will be cached in memory, but not really written: Nothing can be harmed.

With a clone you have a 100% identical copy of the machine you need to update.

artist
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: Artist on 27 April 2025, 19:50:45
I use qemu-nbd to access a kvm guest's qcow2 disk image and then mount the required partitions and rsync to them from the host.

artist
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: Caramon2 on 27 April 2025, 22:46:31
With a clone you have a 100% identical copy of the machine you need to update.
My idea was, to use "sudo pacman -Syuw", then let boot the system itself in kvm with snapshot=on, do "sudo pacman -Su" and when it seems to be ok, shut down the vm an do "sudo pacman -Su" in real.
 
No need to clone the whole system first: that's a waste of time and unnecessary writes on the ssd.

Like this (+ Attachment):
Code: [Select]
#!/bin/bash
if [ $# == 0 ];then echo "vms /dev/sd? …";exit;fi
cl="qemu-system-x86_64 -nodefaults -enable-kvm -cpu host -smp cores=4 -m 4G -vga none -device virtio-vga-gl -display sdl,gl=on -audio sdl,model=hda -boot menu=on"
while [ $# -gt 0 ]
do cl=$cl" -drive file=/dev/sd$1,if=virtio,aio=io_uring,snapshot=on,format=raw"
shift;done
$cl
Edit: "-m 4G" could be a little low for that. 8G should be enough.

Edit2: You have to belong to "disk" or use "sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -run-with user=$USER …"
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: lotuskip on 28 April 2025, 08:02:26
grub updates quite often. I don't know if they're fixing bugs or adding features, but with that frequency either one sounds bad. And then that one time they broke stuff, and ever since then these warnings. It's the GNU way of development, I guess.

I'm using syslinux on my main machine. It might appear dead/obsolete/fringe looking at online resources, but it works. Installed size ~4Mb (compared to grub's almost 36). No idea about features. I just need to boot up my Artix.

While syslinux supports UEFI with some limitations, I'm using GPT. lilo only supports GPT, I believe.

Looks like lilo development was officially ended in 2015, while syslinux had its last update in 2014.
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: Artist on 28 April 2025, 11:27:50
A more modern alternative is rEFInd (https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/), which is available as refind-artix - with additional drivers and Artix logo - in the omniverse repo.

artist
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: mrbrklyn on 29 April 2025, 04:30:06
Not to be rude or cruel, but I am so not interested in any of this.  I want the boot loader to do a  very simple thing... find vmlinuz  or the boot image and read it and execute it:  ie: start the system.


I don''t need plymouth or a splash page, or an encrypted /boot partition or anything.  I just need to turn the key and start the engine and to do that as infrequently as possible.

As for updates, it would be OK is pacman could roll back an update.
Title: Re: grub updates make me nervious
Post by: mrbrklyn on 01 May 2025, 00:06:36
A more modern alternative is rEFInd (https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/), which is available as refind-artix - with additional drivers and Artix logo - in the omniverse repo.

artist


I was looking this over last night and it sounds as if you are doing multiple books it can be quite a useful Swiss army knife.