GNU bug report logs - #20067
File name of initrd and kernel image in 'menu-entry' should not be forced

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From: Tomáš Čech <tcech <at> suse.com>
To: 20067 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: Ludovic Courtès <ludo <at> gnu.org>
Subject: bug#20067: fix interpretation of grub configuration
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2016 18:16:29 +0200

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On Sat, Sep 10, 2016 at 12:03:38AM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>Good news!

Good news indeed!

>
>ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:
>
>> Tomáš Čech <sleep_walker <at> suse.cz> skribis:
>>
>>> Grub configuration interpretes `linux' as directory where is located
>>> bzImage. If I enter file name instead, result configuration will be
>>> wrong.
>>
>> The solution will be to not automatically append “/bzImage” (and
>> likewise for the initrd.)
>>
>> We could change places where ‘menu-entry’ is instantiated to:
>>
>>   #~(string-append #$kernel "/bzImage")
>>
>> However, there’s the problem that the image name appears in the
>> ‘parameters’ file of the system (as seen in the output of ‘guix system
>> build foo.scm’), where it is unevaluated.  If we use ‘string-append’ as
>> above, a raw (string-append …) sexp will appear in there, which is not
>> nice.
>>
>> To address this, an idea is to add “expanders” for gexps: gexps already
>> have “compilers”, and expanders would be similar except that they would
>> produce something possibly different from just the derivation’s output
>> file name.  For instance, we could write:
>>
>>   (file-append kernel "/bzImage")
>>
>> and that would expand directly to:
>>
>>   "/gnu/store/…/bzImage"
>
>AFAICS this is finally fixed!
>
>  expanders in commit ebdfd776f4504c456d383ee8afa59fc6fdfc6756
>  ‘file-append’ in commit a9e5e92f940381e3a4ee828c6d8ff22a73067e17
>  kernel file name in commit 44d5f54e31039d78f156bd9562dca293124eaa76
>
>Please let me know how it goes!  In particular, does it work for the
>dual-boot scenario you were interested in?

It is almost perfect.

Configuration excerpt...

(bootloader (grub-configuration
             (device "/dev/sda")
             (menu-entries
              (list
               (menu-entry
                (label "openSUSE")
                (linux "(hd0,msdos1)/vmlinuz")
                (linux-arguments (list
                                  "root=/dev/venom/opensuse"
                                  "init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd"))
                (initrd "(hd0,msdos1)/initrd"))))))


...transforms into

menuentry "openSUSE" {
  search --file --set (hd0,msdos1)/vmlinuz
  linux (hd0,msdos1)/vmlinuz root=/dev/venom/opensuse init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd
  initrd (hd0,msdos1)/initrd
}

I think that if linux contains prefix '(.*)/', there should be no
search for kernel.

Thank you very much for fixing this bug (especially when I wasn't
able). I believe that fixing this bug is big step in more friendly
behavior to other OS.

Best regards,

S_W

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