GRUB 2.00 Bootloader Officially Released 163
An anonymous reader writes "After being in development for more than a decade, GRUB2 was released today as stable. The mailing list announcement covers new features including a standard theme, support for new file-systems, ports to new CPU architectures, new driver coverage, better EFI support, and many other new features that have materialized over the years of development to succeed GRUB Legacy."
Pfttt (Score:5, Insightful)
LILO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is it. (Score:5, Insightful)
GRUB2many troubles (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite frankly, I've had enough problems on the past few versions of Ubuntu 11-12 that I cringe every time there is a GRUB2 update. I've had software RAID systems refuse to boot (with GPT partitions), and systems with slash on LVM refuse to boot after GRUB2 updates.
The necessity for GRUB2, from what I understand, grew out of the "want" for a VGA video mode at boot so we could have an image on the boot menu (and other fancy things). The trouble I've gone through trying to keep it working though just isn't worth the eye candy IMO.
Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
I too love to have no functionality in my bootloader, and no recourse but to pull out a recovery drive/disc/etc if even the slightest thing goes wrong with boot configuration. Let's all boot like it was 1985! MS-DOS was advanced enough for anyone.
Re:Pfttt (Score:5, Insightful)
See "stable" shouldn't even mean bug free when you're talking about releases. It's not like you can really guarantee that your software has zero (or even very few) bugs.
"Stable" should mean "We're neither going to add new features nor remove existing ones"... meaning you don't have to worry about compatibility issues... so exactly, yes, point releases. The ones you can feel safe they're not going to break anything that used to work.
Re:This is it. (Score:0, Insightful)
THEY ARE.
Kill yourself.
Re:To prevent boot-time rootkit installation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just in time to say good-bye (Score:2, Insightful)
Not much of a loss as far as I'm concerned. I could never get used to Grub2. It has plenty of nifty new features I'm sure but is a pain to work with compared to the previous version. I don't have a single system using it.
Re:Just in time to say good-bye (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the "amusing thing"* that people would want to have as much possible information about their boot system, which is precisely where things like MBR trojans or what will possible be the new "secure boot" versions. And that more "liberal license" than the GPLv3 is only more "liberal" for the OEMs/MS/Vendors in that it gives them more freedom to say while being less liberal in what a user can do.
I really hope they don't. I hope they are as vocal and as loud as possible. You know why? Because I can only see "Secure Boot" having flaws in it and being used by malware. I can only see "Secure Boot" turning into "Secure ID" or some other BS and people becoming angry when it backfires. I really hope some distros stick to their guns even if they appear to be Richard Stallman-like crazy because the truth is, they're the only sane ones and the only way to prove that in the long-term is keep arguing for sanity, not kowtow to the craziness just because it'll point out you're different and make people realize the absurdity of the "Secure Boot" option. Yes, if even after all that, computers still keep coming out with TPM and it becomes as far as mandated for internet access, I can see even the die-hards buying a TPM machine. They'll just tunnel through it with their own VPN and try to continue to use their uninfected machines. In the end, I just hope TPM as a whole dies. The technology could be used for so many good things. But, the two powers involved who keep pushing TPM--government (legislative and executive branches, actually) and corpratists--are hardly the groups I'd put any long-term faith in, let alone short-term faith, when it comes to considerations of freedom or liberty at the individual level.
*Yet again, another one of Richard Stallman's speculations holds out as coming true with TPM and is precisely one of the reasons why the GPLv3 software requires the encryption keys used for execution. The fact that some distributions are so quick to brush aside the clear implications of having to avoid GPLv3 code over precisely that issue and to just consider some of Stallman's speculations on the outcome...is just stupid. And this comes with the point that TPM isn't inherently bad; it's just that by nearly every implementation, it doesn't work to foremost given the actual user the keys and the control but instead the hardware/software producers the keys and the control.
Re:This is it. (Score:4, Insightful)
GPLv3 requires unlocked hardware, mandating that if the user is in not in charge, the user is not allowed to use the software.
The GPL places no restrictions at all on use. It places restrictions on distribution.
I can stick GPL software on whatever system I want to, even if I lack the ability to later modify it. However, if I sell that system to somebody else, then I've got a legal problem.
As long as GRUB isn't on the system when it is sold, there is no GPL issue. That means that Ubuntu can't sell PCs with GRUB pre-loaded on them if they use secure boot without disclosing the signing key, unless it is possible for the user to modify the secure boot keys (which, by the way, is possible on MS-compliant x86 hardware).
I've got no issues with Ubuntu from being blocked from distributing locked-down PCs that users can't modify. If only the kernel were GPL3 then maybe we wouldn't all be stuck having to root our phones...