ucf < 3.006 breaks update-grub in hardy

[Philipp Bönhof]

Binary package hint: ucf

Request
put ucf 3.006 also into hardy -> will fix problems with update-grub

ucf 3.006 fixes problem in update-grub

update-grub does not terminate successful with ucf 3.005 or even lower for hardy.
This prevents all packages that use update-grub in their install scripts to install successfully: eg. memtest86 or maybe even a new kernel-image (not sure though).

I experienced this on a newly installed ubuntu 8.04 with an ucf 3.005.

To resolve the problem I had to get and install ucf 3.006.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

ucf 3.006 contains a single bugfix over ucf 3.005:

  * Bug fix: "ucf: fails to catch conflicts on three-way merging", thanks
    to Niko Tyni. Closes: #473473

So this only affects the behavior of ucf when using three-way merging, which is not the default; and then only when a conflict is found that prevents a successful three-way merge.

Can you explain in more detail what the problem is that you're seeing with update-grub?

[Philipp Bönhof (phboe-launchpad)]

The Problem is that update-grub exactly uses this three-way merging option.

If you have a look at the update-grub script

grep -i three-way /usr/sbin/update-grub

should give you a hit.

apt-cache policy grub
Gives:
grub:
  Installed: 0.97-29ubuntu21
  Candidate: 0.97-29ubuntu21
  Version table:
 *** 0.97-29ubuntu21 0
        500 http://ch.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

with
dpkg -S update-grub

I found that update-grub is in the grub package.

Hope this is more clear and verifiable now.

[Philipp Bönhof (phboe-launchpad)]

Added link to question

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/32022

I think this problem was also because of the bug in the three-way merge.

[Philipp Bönhof (phboe-launchpad)]

I cannot reproduce the problem myself right now. But I really had to use the ucf 3.006 when I wanted to run update-grub on a brand new installed Ubuntu 8.04.

Currently, I don't have the time to make a reinstall and try it out an other time. But maybe somebody else experiences the same difficulties.

[John Dong (jdong)]

Steve, there's a lot of reports of this at the forums:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=948584

It seems like something's going on that trips a 3-way-merge failure in update-grub on these configurations.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Well, there will be a non-trivial number of users who have modified their menu.lst boot stanzas by hand inconsistent with the magic comments, causing the ucf prompt to trigger on installation of a new kernel; and some of these users will choose the 'three-way merge' option; and some of these three-way merges will fail, which with the version of ucf in hardy will cause an immediate abort.

But that's not related to the original bug report here; and fixing this bug only improves the error feedback, it's not going to make update-grub magically able to avoid conflicts when doing a three-way merge.

[dino99 (9d9)]

outdated activity; closing it

http://www.iloveubuntu.net/may-9th-2013-sees-end-life-ubuntu-804-hardy-heron-server-ubuntu-1004-lucid-lynx-desktop-and-ubuntu