Re: [Regression] efi: Don't display a uefi-firmware entry if it's not supported

[Mihai Moldovan]

* On 8/30/22 22:16, Robbie Harwood wrote:
> Philip Müller <philm@manjaro.org> writes:
>
>>> What would be the best approach with older installations of grub via
>>> grub-install not having to reinstall grub to MBR as some users don't
>>> even know on how to install grub properly as that job a graphical
>>> installer does.
> 
> Why doesn't grub on the MBR get updated when you install a new grub
> package?  That seems like the real issue here - what am I missing?
> 
> Regardless, if we can't count on fwsetup being updated, then I think we
> need to go back to the original version of my patch which doesn't have
> --is-supported.

I am not denying that implementing backwards-compatibility is in order as part
of this report, but I would also like to point out Robbie's initial, very valid
point, which has so far been mostly ignored or put aside with a weird "that's a
job a graphical installer does" argument.

It is not. It should not be that way.

Archlinux and Gentoo are the only two Linux-based distributions I know of that
do not re-install grub (both to the boot directory and MBR, ESP or whatever
other thing systems are using) on package upgrades.

For Gentoo, at least, this is on purpose. It is *expected* for users to do that
manually when they see an upgrade to grub. Unfortunately, the documentation is
only mentioning the initial deployment and forgets about upgrade paths, so my
initial assumption that it was properly documented is incorrect. I probably
should make a note to fix this in the wiki pages and handbook.

All other Linux-based distributions and derivatives I know of - may that be
Debian-based, RH-based or *SuSE-based (though I lack experience with more exotic
ones, like Slackware, Mandriva, NixOS, ...) go a long way to make sure that grub
is automatically updated on every package upgrade by virtue of additional,
rather complex scripts that try to detect where it was installed to previously
and, importantly, to synchronize that up - both in the boot partition as well as
its core image loader, where ever that might be. Otherwise, upgrading the grub
package serves no useful purpose, since users will never see any changes.

A boot loader is not meant to be installed once "by a graphical installer" and
then stuck on that version. I can already smell "never change a running system"
and "I don't care for new features", but you should care for bug fixes,
especially security-related ones. Archlinux users seem to be missing out on
that, unless they take manual steps, and from the report it seems like most of
them are not even aware that they should be updating grub manually, which either
indicates improper education and documentation in case it is really MEANT to be
a manual-only process, or a bug in Archlinux' binary grub package.

I would call that an Archlinux bug, especially with all that echo.



Mihai

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