bootloaders [WAS: Re: [Yum] Yum and Aurora Linux]

[Michael A. Peterson]

[major SNIP]

Speaking of yum and bootloaders, I noticed today that yum (more
specifically, the heisted checkbootloader.py :)  relies on the presence of
a comment line in /boot/grub/grub.conf to determine on which
disk/partition grub may be installed.  When this comment-directive is
incorrect, yum bails.

For example, I have a couple of systems whose root filesystems have been
transitioned from an IDE drive to a SCSI drive on a scsi controller card.  
I think this changed happened pre-grub.  Anyway, the comment-directive in 
grub.conf was never changed (who bothers changing comments?) and remained:

#boot=/dev/hda

checkbootloader.py uses this line to see if grub is really installed.  
These systems, though, have no hda anymore, and when it tries to read the 
boot block on hda, yum bails.

Isn't there a Better Way?  Wouldn't (hd0), xref'd with
/boot/grub/device.map be a better candidate to see if grub is actually 
installed?

Michael
-- 
Michael A. Peterson, PhD.
Systems Programmer
Department of Chemistry
Duke University
919-660-1557

"PC" != "Windows"