Was Grub On Arch Linux Really That Bad?

Recently Grub went through some pretty serious issues on Arch and Arch based distros causing boot loops and such but was the problem really that bad looking back in hindsight.

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#ArchLinux #Linux #GRUB #OpenSource #FOSS

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[scheimong]

I think I would really enjoy watching you explore other boot loaders. Afterall it's nice to have and to know about options, even if I don't end up using them.

[Raddddik]

This bug affected my system. I can understand there might arise unusual bugs on a rolling release distortion. What I cannot understand is how a maintainer can call a non-bootable system "not a bug", and as a user felt incredibly condescending.

[jeremyandrews]

I worked on creating an updated GRUB package for a distro once, and wound up in a situation where the only people that could help me were the GRUB team themselves. They were some of the rudest and laziest people I've ever dealt with (not the worst, but up there for sure), and I didn't really want to use GRUB after that. It sounds like it's the perfect storm of Arch expecting users to be experts and not caring if stuff is broken, and the GRUB team expecting distro maintainers to be experts and not caring if stuff breaks for them. I hope more distros move away from GRUB to something more reliable. Something better than GRUB is needed, even if someone has to fork GRUB to make it.

[itildude]

I'm not interested in blame, and I always remain with it's FOSS, as-is no warranty in mind. That said, the lackadaisical, it's not a big deal attitude displayed by Morten (and some others) is frustrating. A user's system all of sudden not booting is kind of a big deal (even if the numbers affected were low, which they weren't). "Bug" or not, fine, argue that. It's frankly irrelevant. The dismissive approach to the situation is the real issue.

[kj_sh]

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I find it interesting that switching to systemd-boot 5 years ago, saved me from a lot of unnecessary drama surrounding a bootloader 😂
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[tcube]

it broke both of my systems too and i was rather confused when i got dropped into grub recovery. i am using straight arch. how can you call this a non issue or not a bug.

This is not the case just for Grub. Systemd boot also requires you to execute bootctl update manually after update, although there is an AUR package that automates it via pacman hook.

[StarsOfPleiades]

Foxboron: "It's not a bug, it's a feature."

[paullee]

It affected my system, but like most arch issues I searched ‘arch Linux grub’ and was able to find the EndeavourOS post and had it fixed within 15 mins. I can understand that for newbies it might have been a bigger issue (lol, remember being new and these types of things meant - time to distro hop!!) - for me, it was just another thing to learn how to repair. Simple pimple.

[npaladin]

I think the major problem was that the Endeavour guys DID find it so quick. The Arch guys were embarassed and tried to cover it with this whole thing about only Endeavour and other downstream derivatives being affected. This wasn't a good place for ego-building though.

[zackglenn]

Definitely interested in a vid about grub alternatives - especially if you can cover some of the more complicated cases. I've been curious about switching since this first went down, but I'm hesitant to try because I dual-boot off separate drives and my root and home are on different partitions.

Somewhat complicated setup means most tutorials don't fit me perfectly and so following them feels like a risk. And taking risks with the bootloader is a bad idea.

[paechan]

This whole issue made me interested in efistub or systemd, so I would love to see a video of you exploring alternatives to grub.

[dotslashluis]

This is why I like systemd-boot. I know a lot of people throw shade at systemd, but never has it broken on my system in the 5 years I've been using Linux, and I love that.

[Sensu]

Yeah, I ended up having an unbootable system after the update. I tried performing the steps on the Arch wiki via chroot, but it didn't work.

I definitely was not happy about having to reinstall Arch when GRUB was in a completely broken state and I feel it's very sad to see the maintainer of GRUB avoiding responsibility. That's the kind of attitude that makes people stop using Linux or swapping distros.

[Marsktty]

This is the sort of experience that makes Linux look bad. I was going to watch a movie with my girlfriend when I did a quick reboot to update my system. It had been awhile when I last used it but it rendered my system unbootable. I was able to fix it but I can't imagine she was pleased about the whole situation. Running endeavourOS btw

[caseyjp]

I've been following along with this since I saw it on /reddit, and smiled in a relieved way when the issue was figured out. I switched out to systemd boot quite awhile back as I don't dual boot and grub was/is a PITA. If I want to futz with something else I use a VM. 🙂

[someonestolemyname]

I think this is a big issue. It is the bootloader that is causing the issue, you can't fix it from the inside. Honestly I think if it isn't broken we shouldn't bother upgrading it. Informing users of this breakage should be 1st priority. not after the system is broken. We also shouldn't need to have a rescue drive always at hand.
I am using Artix Linux and it seems that they have delayed the upgrade as I didn't get a grub update until some time after the arch news. I also personally overlook all upgrades so I saw the upgrade message to run grub install which I am not sure is on the original.

[kamikamieu]

Arch: *GRUB causes massive chaos and issues*
Me: *Chilling with my Fedora minimal install*

[anon_y_mousse]

That guy sounds like the quintessential Linux user from the 90's that I encountered oh so many of who would merely respond with RTFM. That this didn't affect Slackware because they automate more in this regard makes me so happy. I use Slackware, by the way.

[Neucher]

The real question is why doesn't grub make new point releases when they fix CVEs