Bug 70881

On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:05:10PM +0000, Joe wrote:
> 
> Downloaded 5.3 beta1-i386-mininstall.iso, ran md5 checksum and count
> matched, burned to cd and installed using standard/kern-dev.  New boot
> process is missing kernel.generic module in /boot/kernel

Why are you expecting one?  The kernel on the boot media is GENERIC in
5.3.

-- Brooks

Brooks Davis wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:05:10PM +0000, Joe wrote:
>>
>> Downloaded 5.3 beta1-i386-mininstall.iso, ran md5 checksum and
count
>> matched, burned to cd and installed using standard/kern-dev.  New
>> boot process is missing kernel.generic module in /boot/kernel
>
> Why are you expecting one?  The kernel on the boot media is
GENERIC in
> 5.3.
>
> -- Brooks

First of all the 5.3 kernel that comes with the iso file has nfs and
core debugging options turned on so it's not a true generic as in
what is expected for an stable version based on past stable version
back to 3.0.  The 4.x kernel.generic never gets deleted and is
always there as built-in safe guard backup if there is problem with
compiling a new kernel. Now I realize that there is a new boot
process from 4.x so maybe there needs to be a /boot/kernel.generic
directory that is a copy of /boot/kernel directory the system
defaults to boot from. The function of this new directory is much
the same as the kernel.generic file in 4.x. It acts as a built-in
safe guard so the box can always have something to fall back on to
boot the system so it can be used as platform to fix whatever caused
the original boot problems. The bottom line is 5.3 stable should
have the same built-in safe guards as 4.x stable versions have. This
is really a cleanup item for the release built team.

On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:26:46PM -0400, JJB wrote:
> Brooks Davis wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:05:10PM +0000, Joe wrote:
> >>
> >> Downloaded 5.3 beta1-i386-mininstall.iso, ran md5 checksum and
> count
> >> matched, burned to cd and installed using standard/kern-dev.  New
> >> boot process is missing kernel.generic module in /boot/kernel
> >
> > Why are you expecting one?  The kernel on the boot media is
> GENERIC in
> > 5.3.
> >
> > -- Brooks
> 
> First of all the 5.3 kernel that comes with the iso file has nfs and
> core debugging options turned on so it's not a true generic as in
> what is expected for an stable version based on past stable version
> back to 3.0.  The 4.x kernel.generic never gets deleted and is
> always there as built-in safe guard backup if there is problem with
> compiling a new kernel. Now I realize that there is a new boot
> process from 4.x so maybe there needs to be a /boot/kernel.generic
> directory that is a copy of /boot/kernel directory the system
> defaults to boot from. The function of this new directory is much
> the same as the kernel.generic file in 4.x. It acts as a built-in
> safe guard so the box can always have something to fall back on to
> boot the system so it can be used as platform to fix whatever caused
> the original boot problems. The bottom line is 5.3 stable should
> have the same built-in safe guards as 4.x stable versions have. This
> is really a cleanup item for the release built team.

It's not reasionable to expect that 5.x will be identical to 4.x.  In
this case I don't buy your logic anyway since the reason kernel.generic
existed before was that the boot media didn't actually use GENERIC (due
to space constratints on the floppies) and that provided an easy way for
users to use GENERIC without a recompile.  It was never there as a
backup kernel.  That's job of kernel.old or what ever you you choose to
copy working kernels to.

-- Brooks

Brooks Davis wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:26:46PM -0400, JJB wrote:
>> Brooks Davis wrote:
>>> On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 08:05:10PM +0000, Joe wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Downloaded 5.3 beta1-i386-mininstall.iso, ran md5 checksum and
>>>> count matched, burned to cd and installed using
standard/kern-dev.
>>>> New boot process is missing kernel.generic module in
/boot/kernel
>>>
>>> Why are you expecting one?  The kernel on the boot media is
GENERIC
>>> in
>>> 5.3.
>>>
>>> -- Brooks
>>
>> First of all the 5.3 kernel that comes with the iso file has nfs
and
>> core debugging options turned on so it's not a true generic as in
>> what is expected for an stable version based on past stable
version
>> back to 3.0.  The 4.x kernel.generic never gets deleted and is
>> always there as built-in safe guard backup if there is problem
with
>> compiling a new kernel. Now I realize that there is a new boot
>> process from 4.x so maybe there needs to be a
/boot/kernel.generic
>> directory that is a copy of /boot/kernel directory the system
>> defaults to boot from. The function of this new directory is much
>> the same as the kernel.generic file in 4.x. It acts as a built-in
>> safe guard so the box can always have something to fall back on
to
>> boot the system so it can be used as platform to fix whatever
caused
>> the original boot problems. The bottom line is 5.3 stable should
>> have the same built-in safe guards as 4.x stable versions have.
This
>> is really a cleanup item for the release built team.
>
> It's not reasionable to expect that 5.x will be identical to 4.x.
In
> this case I don't buy your logic anyway since the reason
> kernel.generic existed before was that the boot media didn't
actually
> use GENERIC (due to space constratints on the floppies) and that
> provided an easy way for users to use GENERIC without a recompile.
> It was never there as a backup kernel.  That's job of kernel.old
or
> what ever you you choose to copy working kernels to.
>
> -- Brooks

You better check your facts. All 4.x versions are delivered with
/kernel and /kernel.generic. They both are the same size and /kernel
is the default boot uses. This has nothing to do with floppy
booting. You make no sense and give no reason for not having the
release build team just build a /boot/kernel.generic directory to
continue the same high level of built-in safe guards. The user
community knows it 's there and it must have been important enough
that the 4.x build team put it there in the first place. What makes
you think that it's no longer needed or wanted by the users
community. All indications are the current built team has just over
looked this detail that you are so easily discarding. Isn't the
point of the weekly 5.3 beta build serials to fix these little
oversights on the way to creating 5.3 stable? I don't think you are
with the 5.3 beta testing cycle yet.

Comment 5 John Baldwin 2005-11-23 14:23:36 UTC

This is still true in 6.0.  It could be fixed by defaulting the value of th=
e=20
'KERNELS' variable in src/release/Makefile to 'GENERIC' which would result =
in=20
GENERIC getting installed in /boot/GENERIC and bootable from the loader via=
=20
'boot GENERIC'.  However, as it is currently written, the GENERIC kernel=20
wouldn't include any modules (axeing -DNO_MODULES in the .for loop in=20
release.3 would fix this).

=2D-=20
John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> =A0<>< =A0http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve" =A0=3D =A0http://www.FreeBSD.org

Comment 6 Alexander Leidinger 2006-01-08 16:14:31 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->re

Assign to the release engineering team. I think it's their final 
saying which matters.

Note also that the nextboot(8) manpage suggests that GENERIC is  
available in /boot/GENERIC, so it might not be the end of the world  
if it was actually there:

   EXAMPLES
      To boot the GENERIC kernel with the nextboot command:

            nextboot -k GENERIC

Ceri

Comment 8 kensmith 2007-02-19 18:14:11 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->closed


I think we're going to file this one under the combination of "too old to 
do anything about it" and "overtaken by events". 

It's much too late to do anything about this under the RELENG_5 branch. 

And with the RELENG_6 branch we've shifted over to the system that 
tries to install the appropriate kernel for the architecture of the 
machine (UP versus SMP kernels) which does leave a GENERIC kernel 
in /boot/GENERIC just in case.