Re: GRUB 2.06

[Mike Gilbert]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 2:21 PM Bruce Dubbs <bruce.dubbs@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/20/21 12:50 PM, Mike Gilbert wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 1:34 PM Didier Spaier <didier@slint.fr> wrote:
> >> So, it's hard to understand for many end users that:
> >>
> >> 1. The issue appeared after gcc-10 began to be used, well after the
> >> release of grub 2.04.
> >> 2. It has been fixed long ago.
> >> 3. But for the fix to be effective one of these conditions should be met:
> >> a. A new grub version has been released and is provided by the
> >> distribution they use.
> >> b. The distributon they use patches the source of GRUB 2.04 to bring the
> >> fix.
> >> c. The distribution they use provides a package build from a source
> >> pulled from with the patch already committed.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately if none of these conditions is met many users tend
> >> to blame GRUB instead of the distributions and go saying in fora "I'll
> >> avoid to use GRUB, it's broken"
> >
> > My 2 cents:
> >
> > If a distro starts shipping a new version of GCC, they should really
> > test their packages first and patch them as needed.
> >
> > If an end user installs a new version of GCC manually, I would hope
> > they are smart enough to know that it might break things.
> >
> > If an end user builds GRUB manually, they are also responsible for
> > applying any patches that are necessary for their toolchain.
>
> And my two cents:
>
> Actively maintained packages like GRUB should make releases more often
> than every 2-4 years.  GCC is on a schedule to produce stable releases
> twice a year.  GRUB should release new stable releases at least as often.

I would also like to see more frequent releases.

However, I recognize that GRUB has a very conservative release/testing
process, and the developers have limited time available.