OS-PROBER - Setting a cat amongst the pigeons - Wizards Corner

[wizardfromoz]

IMPACTS ON:

• Debian 12 Bookworm
• MX-23 Beta 2 (Bookworm)
• Peppermint 12 (Bookworm)

My install dates and times:

• Debian 12 Bookworm - Mon Jun 12 10:36:38 2023
• MX-23 Beta 2 (Bookworm) - Tue Jun 20 13:20:05 2023
• Peppermint 12 (Bookworm) - Sun Jul 2 14:57:14 2023

Kernel (all three) is 6.1.0-9-amd64.

Grub Version, using

grub-install -V
# Requires sudo under Debian and MX

• Debian 12 Bookworm 2.06-13
• MX-23 Beta 2 (Bookworm) 2.06-13
• Peppermint 12 (Bookworm) 2.06-13

BROAD DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE

AFFECTS

Multi-booters of Linux

MAY AFFECT

Users dualbooting a Linux with a Windows version

FURTHER INPUT REQUESTED

At this point, I will not go further until I get input from Chris Guiver (TIA).

Over at Ubuntu here

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1475735/check-grub-disable-os-prober

Chris mentioned, in part

...& the Debian I'm currently using (I use this box maybe two hours nightly; it's not my primary PC) and I needed to do nothing post install for all OSes to be offered to me at grub...

@guiverc - Chris is that Debian 12 Bookworm, or other?

Mine, following install, included this in /etc/default/grub

# If your computer has multiple operating systems installed, then you
# probably want to run os-prober. However, if your computer is a host
# for guest OSes installed via LVM or raw disk devices, running
# os-prober can cause damage to those guest OSes as it mounts
# filesystems to look for things.
# OS_PROBER re-enabled by Debian Calamares installation:

That last line, in particular, indicates that Calamares Installer detected my multi-booting setup and accommodated that, whereas MX-linux for example, does not, but it uses the MX-installer.

So I will provide more, after I hear from Chris.

Cheers

Wizard

 

[guiverc]

Chris mentioned, in part


@guiverc - Chris is that Debian 12 Bookworm, or other?

That'll be an older box I use at night as its in my kitchen (I'll be turning it on very soon, as I head into the kitchen to start dinner preparation) and the Debian sits on testing so is currently trixie.

The Ubuntu install (Lubuntu actually) done on the weekend was my ~weekly QA-test install of jammy (22.04) using the current daily that I use to upgrade packages (instead of apt update/upgrade) at the same time as ensure we've not stuffed up our currently unreleased 22.04.3 ISO... (non-destructive of course; so my data files will be checked to ensure they're untouched, my chosen apps were auto-reinstalled; I especially test my preferred music player & thus have have something to listen to as I check everything etc)... as I use a non-destructive re-install. On re-install, grub correctly provided options to boot kinetic (22.10), lunar (23.04) etc. & of course last tested was Debian, thus OS_PROBER isn't impacting Ubuntu (though we were impacted Dec-22 & thru quite a bit of the alpha stage of jammy).. I test Debian last, as I always return it (grub-install) to booting first, and its on rare occasion that I notice all the Ubuntu boot options disappear (ie. Debian overwrites my altered default; but I probably let it as I'll be correcting grub entry within a week because of my next install).

Anyway, I'm getting hungry, so going to go turn that box on, then start with dinner prep.

 

[wizardfromoz]

Thanks for that, Chris

Moving on.

Now what do Debian themselves have to say for the os-prober issue?

Well, there was this, from end of April 2023, when Debian 12 Bookworm RC (Release Candidate) 2 was provided.

https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=154553

It says, in part

“If we detect other operating systems installed, check with the user (at low priority) and re-enable os-prober.

grub2:

Add debconf logic for GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER to make it easier to control things here, particularly useful for the installer”

I will come back to that reference to debconf a little later.

Debian have, at this link, about changes brought in with Bookworm (in part)

5.1.11. GRUB no longer runs os-prober by default​

For a long time, grub has used the os-prober package to detect other operating systems installed on a computer so that it can add them to the boot menu. Unfortunately, that can be problematic in certain cases (e.g. where guest virtual machines are running), so this has now been disabled by default in the latest upstream release.

If you are using GRUB to boot your system and want to continue to have other operating systems listed on the boot menu, you can change this. Either edit the file /etc/default/grub, ensure you have the setting GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false and re-run update-grub, or run

dpkg-reconfigure <GRUB_PACKAGE>
to change this and other GRUB settings in a more user-friendly way.

The dpkg-reconfigure reference is a part of the debconf reference, again, I will cover soon.

Wizard

 

[Alexzee]

I plan to install Debian 12 Gnome tomorrow provided the creeks don't rise:-
Once the installation finishes and all is well I'll take plenty of screenshots and post a Full Review on my Wix Linux Blog.