[solved] /boot/grub/grub.cfg installed as /boot/grub/grub.cfg.pacnew

Question

Hello there,
With the latest update of grub-common I got the following message:
( 3/15) upgrading grub-common [################################################################] 100%
warning: /boot/grub/grub.cfg installed as /boot/grub/grub.cfg.pacnew
However, should I reflect the changes of grub.cfg.pacnew or simply ignore it because grub.cfg is generated automatically?
Last edited by orschiro (2013-05-29 05:08:19)

Answer 1

koz wrote:
cfr wrote:
Natanji wrote:I just broke my system with this, so I think the package should *at least* post a notice to the user asking him to run "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg" - or simply doing so post-installation, even. I know, my fault, but it's still really easy to overlook...
Since automating it would make it virtually impossible to maintain a manually configured grub.cfg, I disagree. Arch does not do that stuff automatically. Even for those who do not hand edit the config file, it is likely to break things if people have more complex setups. (For example, in some cases, grub will not find an OS unless the partition is mounted and it might not be mounted.) Actually, not even Fedora does this automatically although I suspect that is considered a bug.
As for the warning, pacman does warn you. It tells you it has installed a *.pacnew file. That tells you two things: (1) you needed to customise the previous default config, and (2) the default config has changed. That copying the pacnew over your old config will break things is standard: blindly copying *any* pacnew over your old, customised file will break things. I agree that it breaks things in a bigger way in this case but the principle is exactly the same. That is not to say that I think a reminder would be out of place - other boot loaders'managers do post such messages. But being told about a pacnew or a pacsave file *is* notification from grub that user intervention is required and this is usually because somebody who knows the system and customisations made previously is required to adapt the changes to accommodate the update. i.e. it is usually because blindly overwriting stuff is very likely to break things.
It is automated! WTF?!
Not really. One can hand edit grub.cfg and the package does not interfere with that.
This is what pacman threw out at me:
warning: /etc/default/grub saved as /etc/default/grub.pacsave
warning: /boot/grub/grub.cfg saved as /boot/grub/grub.cfg.pacsave
( 1/11) upgrading cgminer [#######################################] 100%
( 2/11) upgrading e2fsprogs [#######################################] 100%
( 3/11) installing grub [#######################################] 100%
Copying /boot/grub/grub.cfg.pacsave to /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Is this intended??
It, thankfully, didn't break anything but this isn't what should have happened. I am sure it will ruin someone's day.
I agree this is strange. I have no idea why it moves your old config to a .pacsave and then copies that .pacsave back to grub.cfg. Effectively what it does is just make a copy of your config as .pacsave but I don't know why it does that.
It is in fact quite unlikely to break anything since it is very likely that an existing grub.cfg will work with the new version of grub. Obviously people should check but if somebody doesn't it is not likely to do any harm. I am not sure what you did to break your configuration but I doubt that you copied grub.cfg.pacsave to grub.cfg.