Created attachment 708132 [details]
Bootloader help screen

I'm in the process of moving an openSUSE (13.1) instance from one partition
(/dev/sda3) to another at another disk (/dev/sdb6).

It's a long bug report.  Use it please to look carefully at the bootloader help
and hopefully with the information I provide below, you can provide the best
bootloader help of all linux distributions.


Use case:
As such I don't want to alter the bootloader config that is stored for
/dev/sda.  I want the bootloader config to be stored at /dev/sdb.  With the
idea that 
during the boot I select the disk to boot from (sdb), and use the bootloader
that is located at that disk....

For the interested, it's like a bit as described in this article:
 
http://sysadmin.compxtreme.ro/how-to-migrate-a-single-disk-linux-system-to-software-raid1/

In this article 
grub2-mkconfig
grub-install /dev/sda
grub-install /dev/sdb
are used, but these commands are hidden by yast-bootloader.

Back to yast bootloader:
The help about 'edit disk boot order' states:
"Disks Order
To specify the order of the disks according to the order in BIOS, ......"

Why is this boot order depending on the order in the bios?  Is another (random)
disk order allowed as well, if so what would be consequence?


The boot loader location: what are the advantages of the three different boot
loader locations (boot from root partition, MBR or custom partition?  This is
not mentioned at all in the help. 

In case of custom partition, can it be any partition (swap? A partition for
/home or /srv or must e.g. /boot be located at the partition?).

BTW: Why is it not: Boot from Custom Boot partition, just like the other two
option.  The menu can then become:

Boot from:
[] Root Partition
[] Master Boot Record
[] Custom Boot Partition

Hmm, what is meant with Root Partition?  The Root partition of what (when there
are multiple openSUSE's on the disk, which root partition).
And should it be 'Custom Root Partition' or indeed be boot partition (with
/boot on it)?

Is it possible to provide a drop down list of possible (boot) partitions for
the custom Boot partition?  BTW why is it called 'custom boot partition', why
not just 'custom partition'?

When should "write generic boot code to mbr" be used?  There is no advice about
that in the help.

What happens when 'set active flag in parttion table for boot (root?? see boot
loader location section above ) partition' is not used?  In other words is it
required, if so when and how.

When all is set and configured, and the user clicks OK to get the bootloader
created is it an idea to show a summary screen to show what settings have been
chosen.  After confirmation of the proposal continue created / changing the
bootloader.

As stated in the beginning, please consider improving the bootloader help based
on my questions and remarks above.

The bootloader may be obvious for the regular bootloader user, but may not be
obvious for others ( although I'm an experienced linux user, so that is not the
issue ).

Looking forward to the improvements, hopefully already in 42.3!

PS: I selected component bootloader, but perhaps yast2 is better