Re: [patch] grub incorrectly identifies ext3 as fat

[Robert Millan]

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 02:43:19PM -0400, Andrew Clausen wrote:
> > Or we can attempt to read a given file when we expect it's there.  For
> > example, if we're looking for /boot/grub/, we can tell "/boot/grub" to the
> > filesystem layer, so that it will require it as a precondition.
> 
> I can see that that would work will for some use cases...

Most importantly, it's a net win.  If we know a file is there, there's no
harm in requiring that the filesystem driver is capable of reading it.

It's a pity, because we already had this check, and we were forced to
disable it.  Would you like to help us restore it?  I can give more details.

> I think this is very important: I spent hours trying to [...]

Nobody questions that.  It certainly is very important to me, but even then,
we should look for solutions that are good in long-term.

When using heuristics, if one's not careful can end up in a slippery slope,
in which adding an heuristic fixes a problem at the cost of introducing a
new one, and then you can only fix that by adding yet another heuristic
(which can be repeated ad nauseam).

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."