Bug 921896 - Single quote in f19 release name breaks grub2, probably other stuff
Summary: Single quote in f19 release name breaks grub2, probably other stuff
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: fedora-release
Version: 19
Hardware: All
OS: All
unspecified
urgent
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Dennis Gilmore
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard: AcceptedBlocker
Depends On:
Blocks: F19Alpha, F19AlphaBlocker
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2013-03-15 08:21 UTC by Adam Williamson
Modified: 2013-03-21 04:46 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-03-20 18:31:52 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Adam Williamson 2013-03-15 08:21:22 UTC
As discussed on devel:

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2013-March/180239.html

the ' in "Schrödinger's Cat" has unfortunate consequences in grub2: it closes quotations in two lines of kernel config prematurely, breaking grub2 completely (the affected kernel entries are not visible in the menu, and any other kernel entries are visible but will fail to boot correctly).

It's quite possible / likely that this is the case in other things that parse the release name out of /etc/fedora-release etc too, really.

The immediate solution would probably be to replace it with a Unicode apostrophe, but hey, as notting said on IRC, if your proposed solution is 'MOAR UNICODE!' you might want to take a look in the mirror. Dumping it entirely would be ugly but safer.

The umlauted o could conceivably cause problems somewhere too, but I have not yet tested for sure whether it causes issues in grub.

Proposing as an Alpha blocker.

Comment 1 Adam Williamson 2013-03-15 08:23:52 UTC
I think grubby actually parses /etc/os-release , now I look at the code. But whatever we should do, we should probably do everywhere.

Comment 2 Jens Petersen 2013-03-18 08:52:24 UTC
> The umlauted o could conceivably cause problems somewhere too

The ö only renders correctly on the kernel console if /etc/fedora-release
is encoding in iso8859-1 instead of utf-8.  But changing the encoding would
likely mess up grub, etc instead, so I agree with the sentiment to
transliterate to ASCII.

Unless quoting ' works, maybe "Schroedingers Cat" is good enough?
(I will test more \' once a new f19 kernel lands.)


I think there need to be character restrictions for future release name suggestions...

Comment 3 Jaroslav Reznik 2013-03-18 15:17:27 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> > The umlauted o could conceivably cause problems somewhere too
> 
> The ö only renders correctly on the kernel console if /etc/fedora-release
> is encoding in iso8859-1 instead of utf-8.  But changing the encoding would
> likely mess up grub, etc instead, so I agree with the sentiment to
> transliterate to ASCII.
> 
> Unless quoting ' works, maybe "Schroedingers Cat" is good enough?
> (I will test more \' once a new f19 kernel lands.)

Works for me.

> 
> I think there need to be character restrictions for future release name
> suggestions...

On the other hand it would be great to make it working - instead of setting limitations for future names.

Comment 4 Adam Williamson 2013-03-18 16:00:38 UTC
Can we please paint the bikeshed that color *right now*? We have enough real bugs to deal with and having this one in the way is just complicating matters.

Comment 5 Jaroslav Reznik 2013-03-19 14:18:51 UTC
Well, I'm definitely in favour of release name tweak but if we do it now, then I'd like to stick with it for final too (not only for Alpha). Proposed "Schroedingers Cat" should work, we usually don't show it anywhere (correct me if I'm right).

Dennis?

Comment 6 Bill Nottingham 2013-03-19 16:38:27 UTC
Why would the ö only work if it's 8859-1? We switch the console to unicode very early in boot.

Personally, I'd just replace the ' with whatever the unicode quote equivalent is, and fix any weird quoting grub issues that way.

Comment 7 Adam Williamson 2013-03-19 18:06:36 UTC
jaro: it's shown in the bootloader menu for post-release update kernels - that's the whole bug here - and at the tty login prompt, at least. Probably other places.

Comment 8 Dennis Gilmore 2013-03-19 21:16:34 UTC
we have fixed up the ' today

Comment 9 Jaroslav Reznik 2013-03-20 10:30:17 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> jaro: it's shown in the bootloader menu for post-release update kernels -
> that's the whole bug here - and at the tty login prompt, at least. Probably
> other places.

Ah, sorry - I don't know what I was thinking about in time I wrote that comment :(

Comment 10 Adam Williamson 2013-03-20 16:40:08 UTC
Discussed at 2013-03-20 blocker review meeting: http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-blocker-review/2013-03-20/f19alpha-blocker-review-2.2013-03-20-16.00.log.txt . Accepted as a blocker per criterion https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_19_Alpha_Release_Criteria#Expected_installed_system_boot_behavior: "After firstboot is completed and on subsequent boots, a graphical install must boot to a log in screen where it is possible to log in to a working desktop as the user created during firstboot." - as soon as you apply a kernel update, system stops booting.

Comment 11 Adam Williamson 2013-03-20 17:08:55 UTC
The updated fedora-release is out already, I just need to test and verify it fixes the problem.

Comment 12 Christopher Patrick 2013-03-20 18:19:47 UTC
it fixes the problem for me upgraded 18 to 19 via yum and I got a working 19 system

Comment 13 Adam Williamson 2013-03-20 18:31:52 UTC
Thanks, Christopher.

Comment 14 Jens Petersen 2013-03-21 04:46:08 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)
> Why would the ö only work if it's 8859-1? We switch the console to unicode
> very early in boot.

Ok it seems to work after rebooting into fedora-release-19-0.5
- the console font seems to be a bit stateful...

> Personally, I'd just replace the ' with whatever the unicode quote
> equivalent is, and fix any weird quoting grub issues that way.

That renders as a box for me on the console but I can live with that for now.

Things look ok in grub now anyway.


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