[Bug 902719] Re: Invalid menu.lst file was created

[LukeKendall]

I should add, if there is a way to test a grub menu.lst to find if it
will certainly fail, that should be run as part of the menu.lst creation
step.  There are certain syntax errors, and semantic errors, which could
be checked in advance.

Perhaps grub has such a facility - lilo used to - but if grub doesn't,
IMO that means grub should get a bug report "cannot test for errors in
grub configuration" i.e. there is no way to look before you leap for the
most serious step in modifying your system, especially for non-expert
users.

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Title:
  Invalid menu.lst file was created

Status in “update-manager” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Over Sun 4th - Wed 7th I upgraded from Ubuntu 9.10 to 10.04.  I chose
  the option "use the package-provider's menu.lst".  It created a
  menu.lst that could not boot.  The problem was that it consistently
  used invalid syntax for each "root" stanza, e.g.:

  title           Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-36-generic-pae
  root            /dev/sda6
  kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-36-generic-pae root=/dev/sda6 quiet
  initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-36-generic-pae
  quiet

  By editing the grub commandline from inside grub, to provide instead
  root            (hd0,5)
  the system booted.

  Later, when I edited menu.lst to correct the problem permanently, I
  found that every root line for each kernel used the Linux device name
  instead of the grub device syntax.

  Sorry, I can't easily provide details (lsb_release -rd and update-manager versions) on the 9.10 system as I'm not running it anymore.
  (If it's important to know, let me know, and I'll see if I can boot it up - I saved a copy of / onto another partition before doing the system upgrade.)

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
  Package: update-manager 1:0.134.11.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-36.79-generic-pae 2.6.32.46+drm33.20
  Uname: Linux 2.6.32-36-generic-pae i686
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
  Architecture: i386
  Date: Sun Dec 11 17:36:01 2011
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
  PackageArchitecture: all
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=en_AU:en
   LC_COLLATE=C
   PATH=(custom, user)
   LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: update-manager

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