Re: GRUB fallback mechanism [was Re: Brain storming cool Guix features]

[L p R n d n <guix@lprndn.info>]

Hello,

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> skribis:
>
>> swedebugia <swedebugia@riseup.net> writes:
>>
>>> Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> skrev: (11 januari 2019 23:32:12 CET)
>
> [...]
>
>>>>Apparently GRUB has a feature that records a "fallback" system to boot
>>>>if booting fails.
>>>>
>>>>Maybe when reconfiguring, Guix could set the current system as the
>>>>fallback so that it would always boot.
>>>>
>>>>If we did that, we'd want to warn the user somehow... not sure how to
>>>>achieve that.
>>>>
>>>>Discussion of this feature at NixOS:
>>>>
>>>>https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/26332
>>>
>>> I don't think automatic fallback is a good idea because it unnecessarily complicates a now well working simple part of the OS.
>>> KISS is a nice principle.
>>
>> I think exposing this GRUB feature would be good, even if not enabled by
>> default.  It does not seem very complicated and can be very useful for
>> some users.
>
> I agree.
>
>> Unfortunately, it doesn’t help us when GRUB itself is broken with an
>> upgrade, which I think is what was suggested earlier.
>
> We’ll have to assume (and ensure!) this doesn’t happen…

Personally, I never thought about a guix failure here, more about
power-outtage or anything we can't control. :D

> Ludo’.