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* bug#44898: [wishlist] Make the GRUB installation procedure smarter
@ 2020-11-26 23:15 guixuser6392 via Bug reports for GNU Guix
  2020-11-27 20:00 ` bug#44898: (No Subject) guixuser6392 via Bug reports for GNU Guix
  2021-09-05  1:27 ` bug#44898: [wishlist] Make the GRUB installation procedure smarter muradm
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 3+ messages in thread
From: guixuser6392 via Bug reports for GNU Guix @ 2020-11-26 23:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: 44898

Every time the operating system is instantiated the GRUB boot-loader is inexplicitly re-installed. This behaviour leads to unsolicited changes to the user's boot configuration on UEFI systems; and leads to unnecessary write operations on the ESP, and/or the MBR, which, in case they are abruptly aborted during the building of the install-bootloader derivation, can leave the system in an unbootable state. Futhermore, frequent writes to the platform's NV-RAM may negatively impact its lifespan.

NixOS stores the GRUB derivation as well as boot parameters in a state file, and only re-installs the boot-loader if the computed state is different from the stored state: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/system/boot/loader/grub/install-grub.pl#L626. However, unless I am mistaken, that alone will not prevent GRUB from altering the user's boot configuration in a scenario, in which we want GRUB to be re-installed because it has received an update.

To summarize, I think that consecutive grub-install invocations should not be allowed to modify the user's boot configuration on UEFI systems, and that we should teach Guix to only re-install the boot-loader if the boot parameters has been changed and/or the GRUB package has been upgraded.

Although other boot-loaders are not in the scope of this wish, brining their installation procedures to the same high standard would be beneficial, too.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 3+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2021-09-05  1:51 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
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2020-11-26 23:15 bug#44898: [wishlist] Make the GRUB installation procedure smarter guixuser6392 via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2020-11-27 20:00 ` bug#44898: (No Subject) guixuser6392 via Bug reports for GNU Guix
2021-09-05  1:27 ` bug#44898: [wishlist] Make the GRUB installation procedure smarter muradm

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