[footnotes follow .sig]
summary: a recent package update/upgrade on a Debian box installed
kernel-related packages (including GRUB packages), then failed to install GRUB.
How to recover?
details:
As detailed here[1], I have an otherwise-up-to-date Debian box on which I
unwisely put filesystem type=ext2 on the `/boot` partition:
$ mount | grep -e '^/dev/'
/dev/sda3 on /boot type ext2 ...
...
That appears to block upgrade of GRUB2: when I recently ran `sudo apt-get
dist-upgrade`, it successfully installed several kernel-related packages, but
then
Setting up grub-common (2.02~beta2-22+deb8u1) ...
Setting up grub2-common (2.02~beta2-22+deb8u1) ...
Setting up grub-pc-bin (2.02~beta2-22+deb8u1) ...
Setting up grub-pc (2.02~beta2-22+deb8u1) ...
Installing for i386-pc platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.
Installing for i386-pc platform.
grub-install: warning: File system `ext2' doesn't support embedding.
grub-install: warning: Embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be
installed in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are
UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
At about this point, my console went to character-mode-graphics to present a
dialog with title=`Configuring grub-pc` and body telling me that `GRUB failed
to install`:
Do you want to continue anyway? If you do, your computer may not start up
properly.
Writing GRUB to boot device failed - continue?
I hit button=No. At this point, I have 3 questions based on 2 assumptions. The
assumptions are
1. I won't be able to boot my new kernel until I enable whatever does the
post-package-install actions to complete successfully (and not put up another
`Configuring grub-pc` dialog).
2. As part of that enablement, I should first update my {`/dev/sda3`, `/boot`}
from filesystem type=ext2 to something else.
Does that seem reasonable, or am I misunderstanding the situation? Presuming my
assumptions are correct (and please stop reading now and tell me if they are
not!), my questions are
1. To what filesystem type should I update my {`/dev/sda3`, `/boot`}? I'm
guessing ext4; please let me know if there's a better option.
2. What's the {easiest, most reliable, least disruptive} way to convert my
`/boot`'s filesystem, on Debian? `fstransform`[2]?
3. How to resume the GRUB2 install (after I upgrade `/boot`'s filesystem) on
Debian? Note that the GRUB2 *packages* (`grub-common`, `grub-pc`,
`grub-pc-bin`, `grub2-common`) are already installed per both `apt-get` and
`aptitude`. So is there a way to recreate the package-install post-setting-up
actions? Or should I remove the packages and reinstall them?
TIA, Tom Roche <[email protected]>
[1]: http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/259712/38638
[2]: https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=fstransform
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