Re: grub-probe detects ext4 wronly as ext2

[Robert Millan]

On Fri, Jul 04, 2008 at 12:34:50PM +0200, Javier Martín wrote:
> > And, grub WILL follow the evolution the extN, because it's the primary
> > boot loader for linux. The only reason we don't have ext4 support at
> > present is because it's not stable. If major distro starts to use it
> > as default, we would have to support it as well.
> Please... ReiserFS was used for long in many distros and GRUB2 didn't
> support it until 1.96 - even with GRUB Legacy having implemented it long
> ago. I literally waited years for it to be included!

This is not a good example.  We were (and still are, though almost finished)
in the process of transitioning from GRUB Legacy to GRUB 2.  ReiserFS authors
weren't compelled to contribute a driver for GRUB 2 the same way they had been
to contribute it for GRUB Legacy.

> Besides, as I
> already said, we cannot win in a race against the future: new features,
> some of them incompatible, are introduced ""constantly"" (every few
> years) in extN, and until we get to know about them and at least decide
> whether they can be safely ignored, the sane behavior is to obey them
> and reject access (except if the user override is enabled). Yes, we can
> implement ext4 and possibly even before it's released as stable, but
> could you please start implementing ext7 so that we don't have to worry
> about its incompatibilities when it comes?

If this is really to be considered a problem, we might as well be conservative
in both grub-probe and real GRUB, and reject unknown flags.  Not a big deal,
since unknown flags aren't really going to use their "experimental" status
untill mainstream distributions support them, and this includes GRUB.

-- 
Robert Millan

<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What good is a phone call… if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)