On 6/16/20 12:18 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
What I'd like to propose is to genericize grml-rescueboot as grub-loopback-iso. This package could be aware of distros (e.g. continue to say "Grml Rescue System" for grml-*.iso). I also have a few additional wanted updates, namely fixing the grub dependencies so it can be used on arm64 UEFI (which it also would otherwise work fine on). The grml-rescueboot package could remain and depend on grub-loopback-iso, as it has the update-grml-rescueboot script which *is* Grml-specific.
If this is something we agree can be pursued, I'm willing to do the work (conceptually, https://github.com/finnix/grub-loopback-iso-pkg is about 80% of the work done already, but would need more work to be a proper transitional from grml-rescueboot). I just wanted to make sure this is something Grml is not opposed to.
I very much appreciate your efforts, thanks for reaching out to us!
I'm absolutely not opposed to it, I'm just wondering how the bugreports against grub-loopback-iso are supposed to be handled then. Should a team be formed and bug reports are forwarded to the according teams (Finnix, Grml, Ubuntu,...)? Bugreports against Grml ISOs e.g. could be reported against grml-rescueboot then, but what about other distributions though? Which distributions should be "supported" then?
Do you have an overview which distributions support loopback boot nowadays and could/would be supported within grub-loopback-iso?
I think the proposed grub-loopback-iso should be treated as a generic tool, "supporting" any loopback.cfg-compatible distro ISO. I proposed having Grml-specific detection basically as acknowledgement for Grml being first to do it :), but otherwise there doesn't need to be any distro-specific code in the package itself (i.e. the Grub submenu for a Finnix iso would just be something like "Loopback ISO (finnix-120.iso)".
As for which distros currently support loopback.cfg, it appears to be "just" Debian and their derivatives, and Ubuntu and their derivatives (yes Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian, but their image build system has diverged from Debian so much that it's essentially entirely different, but still builds compatible loopback.cfg files). I thought Fedora had it, and I've found various discussions about it, but apparently it was never implemented.
As for package maintenance in Debian, it could be something like a Salsa team, or you could add me to Uploaders, or I could just go through you for updates (I don't anticipate regular maintenance being that much).
Let me get something together in the next few days based on the grub-loopback-iso work from a few weeks ago, so we can have a specific proposal to discuss.
[1] In 2014 I had apparently forked grml-rescueboot as grub-loopback-iso, but never got it into Debian. And at some point it was added as a grml-rescueboot git branch? (http://git.grml.org/?p=grml-rescueboot.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/grub-loop...) So it was known about and maybe was discussed at some point, but I honestly don't remember. I had updated my grub-loopback-iso and was looking for sponsors when Paul reminded me of grml-rescueboot again.
I think this dates back to the work around https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=750072 :)
Oh wow, I literally don't even remember that bug! That puts a lot of stuff in perspective now, thanks.