Subject: Re: grub (was: Re: RAIDframe for dom0?)
To: Dieter <netbsd@sopwith.solgatos.com>
From: Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@netbsd.org>
List: port-xen
Date: 08/16/2005 14:19:54
On Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 10:46:52AM +0100, Dieter wrote:
> >>> Of course, the right way to fix this is to KILL KILL KILL the
> >>> dependency on Grub.
> >>
> >> Yes, please!
> >
> > I have zero interest in installing Grub on my systems,
> > and I pretty much refuse to run NetBSD/xen as long as that is a
> > requirement.
> 
> Okay, I'll bite.  Why does everyone hate grub?

The code is revolting, the user interface is opaque and highly buggy,
it exhibits the "I know better than the user" interface paradigm as
much as almost any system utility I've ever seen (note how it's
impossible to run "grub-install" on a root-on-RAID netbsd system
because it *ignores* the "impossible" values in the disk map even
if the correct values were hand-entered there), it is poorly
documented, it doesn't know how to pass arguments to a modern NetBSD
kernel, and, even worse, the support for booting BSD kernels *at all*
relies on header files copied directly from an old version of FreeBSD
with their copyrights stripped off in blatant violation of the BSD
license.

Enough said?

-- 
 Thor Lancelot Simon	                                      tls@rek.tjls.com

"The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be
 abandoned or transcended, there is no problem."		- Noam Chomsky