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[Colin Watson]

On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 11:21:09AM +0800, John wrote:
> Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> >On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 09:28:31AM +0800, John wrote:
> >>lilo doesn't need them, I used it for some years without symlinks.
> >
> >lilo needs them in order to usefully interface with the packaging system.
> 
> Oh. I did check round my systems, only one has LILO and that doesn't 
> have symlinks.
> 
> >>This is not a machine that runs Yaboot.  I'm not installing lilo. If the
> >>Debian/Ubuntu packaging of LILO requires them, let the LILO package create
> >>them/turn them on.
> >
> >If they bother you, you can turn them off.  Read kernel-img.conf(5).
> 
> I suggest turning them on only if they're needed.

They're needed for the Debian/Ubuntu packaging of all bootloaders, which
all rely on the symlinks so that kernel upgrades don't have to run
around editing bootloader configuration files, which is flaky and risky.

Since they're always needed in default configurations (and this is a
good thing, although at some point they might be moved into /boot, where
they are on powerpc), I think this discussion is probably moot.

If you want to ditch the symlinks, you'll have to manage the bootloader
configuration file yourself. However, naïve users should not be forced
to do this.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                    [cjwatson at canonical.com]