On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 05:41:04PM -0000, Brad Schulteis wrote:
> Understood, but I think it's ridiculous to require a user to have their
> system in a specific state, with no reminders or warnings, especially
> considering the check would be a single line of code.

The problem is not the code (though I disagree with your length estimate),
it's that this is a deep policy issue.  The package manager has to continue
to work even if files belonging to packages are missing, because the user
might be using it to recover from filesystem corruption, or maybe a wayward
rm -rf.  So the only way to recognize that a filesystem isn't mounted that
should be is for the package manager to parse /etc/fstab.  But then, what
fstab entries should be treated as "required" by dpkg/apt?  Should a
"noauto" entry be required?  Is your /boot even /in/ your fstab?  (For some
users it may not be, in which case this is completely impossible to detect!)

And this is a package management issue, not an issue with the grub package,
because long before update-grub is called and triggers this error, the
kernel package update has already been unpacked and dropped its files on the
wrong filesystem (the /boot directory of the root filesystem).  So any
changes to update-grub to fail more gracefully would only give a false sense
of security.

Apt supports configuring hooks to run commands before and after installing
packages.  I know users who use this to remount their read-only filesystems
read-write for package installation; I think a similar hook would address
your needs here better than anything that could be done by default in the
package manager, since yours is, after all, very much a non-standard
configuration.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
[email protected]                                     [email protected]

-- 
package linux-image-2.6.31-19-generic 2.6.31-19.56 failed to install/upgrade: 
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/521047
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