GRUB 2.00 Bootloader Officially Released

An anonymous reader writes "After being in development for more than a decade, GRUB2 was released today as stable. The mailing list announcement covers new features including a standard theme, support for new file-systems, ports to new CPU architectures, new driver coverage, better EFI support, and many other new features that have materialized over the years of development to succeed GRUB Legacy."

Comments

Pfttt

[Severus Snape]

They should have declared it stable long ago, when all the major distros have adopted it for release after release it's time to move on. Sure, there must have still been bugs but that's where point releases come in handy.

Re:Pfttt

[Anonymous Coward]

See "stable" shouldn't even mean bug free when you're talking about releases. It's not like you can really guarantee that your software has zero (or even very few) bugs.

"Stable" should mean "We're neither going to add new features nor remove existing ones"... meaning you don't have to worry about compatibility issues... so exactly, yes, point releases. The ones you can feel safe they're not going to break anything that used to work.

finally!

[manicpop]

I'm glad GRUB2 is finally finished! Now we can finally move on to scrapping the entire thing and spending years on GRUB3.

Re:This is it.

[Severus Snape]

What Ubuntu has been referring to as Grub2 was Grub1.9x, a pre-release of Grub2. What the OP means is their dropping it because of legal issues around GPLv3, on Windows 8 approved hardware they won't be able to keep the private signing key, private which would result in their certificates being revoked. http://www.extremetech.com/computing/131628-canonical-explains-decision-to-ditch-grub-2-on-uefi-systems

Just in time to say good-bye

[Anonymous Coward]

The amusing thing about this is, with secure boot coming out GRUB2 will probably be tossed out in favour of a boot loader with a more liberal license. Ubuntu has already stated they are dropping GRUB2, I imagine other distros will follow in the next few years.

Re:Just in time to say good-bye

[10101001 10101001]

The amusing thing about this is, with secure boot coming out GRUB2 will probably be tossed out in favour of a boot loader with a more liberal license.

Yes, the "amusing thing"* that people would want to have as much possible information about their boot system, which is precisely where things like MBR trojans or what will possible be the new "secure boot" versions. And that more "liberal license" than the GPLv3 is only more "liberal" for the OEMs/MS/Vendors in that it gives them more freedom to say while being less liberal in what a user can do.

Ubuntu has already stated they are dropping GRUB2, I imagine other distros will follow in the next few years.

I really hope they don't. I hope they are as vocal and as loud as possible. You know why? Because I can only see "Secure Boot" having flaws in it and being used by malware. I can only see "Secure Boot" turning into "Secure ID" or some other BS and people becoming angry when it backfires. I really hope some distros stick to their guns even if they appear to be Richard Stallman-like crazy because the truth is, they're the only sane ones and the only way to prove that in the long-term is keep arguing for sanity, not kowtow to the craziness just because it'll point out you're different and make people realize the absurdity of the "Secure Boot" option. Yes, if even after all that, computers still keep coming out with TPM and it becomes as far as mandated for internet access, I can see even the die-hards buying a TPM machine. They'll just tunnel through it with their own VPN and try to continue to use their uninfected machines. In the end, I just hope TPM as a whole dies. The technology could be used for so many good things. But, the two powers involved who keep pushing TPM--government (legislative and executive branches, actually) and corpratists--are hardly the groups I'd put any long-term faith in, let alone short-term faith, when it comes to considerations of freedom or liberty at the individual level.

*Yet again, another one of Richard Stallman's speculations holds out as coming true with TPM and is precisely one of the reasons why the GPLv3 software requires the encryption keys used for execution. The fact that some distributions are so quick to brush aside the clear implications of having to avoid GPLv3 code over precisely that issue and to just consider some of Stallman's speculations on the outcome...is just stupid. And this comes with the point that TPM isn't inherently bad; it's just that by nearly every implementation, it doesn't work to foremost given the actual user the keys and the control but instead the hardware/software producers the keys and the control.

Re:LILO

[omnichad]

Ah, yes - LILO. The friendly bootloader with helpful error messages like L or LI.

Re:To prevent boot-time rootkit installation

[raap]

No. It is designed to generate a chain of trust from the BIOS (UEFI) up to the operating system including drivers. So if you change anything in this chain, DRM-plagued media will refuse to play! It's all about the ability to play content withot the user being able to grab that content or do anything else with it. If it would be about preventing root kits, then the master keys could be in the hand of the user.

Re:LILO

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah because grub's error reporting is awesome

OH GOD WHAT HAPPENED HERE IS A SHELL
type help for more
> help

boot dontboot squeak ripple clown jump error what no boot-alt boot-queue list-devices list-devices-differently help

>