Arch Linux

HariSeldon

Member

Registered: 2012-04-30

Posts: 18

grub-btrfs broken

Hi,
Just did a fresh Arch install.
installed snapper and grub-btrfs.

Created some snapshot with snapper as first thing done:

sudo snapper list
# │ Type   │ Pre # │ Date                     │ User │ Cleanup │ Description    │ Userdata
──┼────────┼───────┼──────────────────────────┼──────┼─────────┼────────────────┼─────────
0 │ single │       │                          │ root │         │ current        │
1 │ single │       │ mer 9 apr 2025, 01:33:06 │ root │         │ first_snapshot │

then tried to enable the grub-btrfsd:

$ sudo systemctl status grub-btrfsd
× grub-btrfsd.service - Regenerate grub-btrfs.cfg
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/grub-btrfsd.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Wed 2025-04-09 01:42:56 CEST; 1s ago
   Duration: 29ms
 Invocation: 31d66dd2b8234cb7a7c105c4b8cecd8d
    Process: 3464 ExecStart=/usr/bin/grub-btrfsd --syslog /.snapshots (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 3464 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Mem peak: 1.6M
        CPU: 7ms

apr 09 01:42:56 proxima grub-btrfsd[3465]: [!] inotifywait was not found, exiting. Is inotify-tools installed?
apr 09 01:42:56 proxima systemd[1]: grub-btrfsd.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
apr 09 01:42:56 proxima systemd[1]: grub-btrfsd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

no way to make it work. everything vanilla and fresh

The solution?

this one:

 diff /usr/bin/grub-btrfsd /usr/bin/grub-btrfsd.BAK 
209c209
<     if grep "snapshots-btrfs" "${GRUB_BTRFS_GRUB_DIRNAME:-/boot/grub}"/grub.cfg; then
---
>     if grep "snapshots-btrfs" "{grub_directory}/grub.cfg"; then

found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comm … ?rdt=57624

is a 7 months old solution!

Really I wouldn't expect that from arch. A very basic functionality like grub-btrfsd is broken till 7 and more months, still not fixed in the official repos from months and months...
Very disappointed.

Sorry for my rant, at least I hope this solution helps someone.

mackin_cheese

Member

Registered: 2025-01-07

Posts: 428

Re: grub-btrfs broken

Really I wouldn't expect that from arch. A very basic functionality like grub-btrfsd is broken till 7 and more months, still not fixed in the official repos from months and months...
Very disappointed.

Sorry for my rant, at least I hope this solution helps someone. [/quote

I have three points to make about this:

1. The package is orphaned.
2. You didn't need to post this here. you could have posted this in a arch wiki page for grub-btrfs
3. You could have posted a bug report in the gitlab page for this package.

Arch Linux is kept running by volunteers that do not get paid, and we also expect the community to contribute wherever they can regarding Arch Linux. In this instance, instead of contributing to the community via a bug report and a wiki page, you decided to rant and say you were disappointed. Why wait on others to put work in when you could have EASILY contributed to this issue by submitting a bug report and opening a wiki page? You could have done something about it, instead you decided to rant about it. As a arch user, you are part of the community, so when you say "i wouldn't expect that from Arch", that includes yourself. Contribute instead of complaining, we're all contributors here.

HariSeldon

Member

Registered: 2012-04-30

Posts: 18

Re: grub-btrfs broken

Really I wouldn't expect that from arch. A very basic functionality like grub-btrfsd is broken till 7 and more months, still not fixed in the official repos from months and months...
Very disappointed.

Sorry for my rant, at least I hope this solution helps someone. [/quote

I have three points to make about this:

1. The package is orphaned.
2. You didn't need to post this here. you could have posted this in a arch wiki page for grub-btrfs
3. You could have posted a bug report in the gitlab page for this package.

Arch Linux is kept running by volunteers that do not get paid, and we also expect the community to contribute wherever they can regarding Arch Linux. In this instance, instead of contributing to the community via a bug report and a wiki page, you decided to rant and say you were disappointed. Why wait on others to put work in when you could have EASILY contributed to this issue by submitting a bug report and opening a wiki page? You could have done something about it, instead you decided to rant about it. As a arch user, you are part of the community, so when you say "i wouldn't expect that from Arch", that includes yourself. Contribute instead of complaining, we're all contributors here.

Yes you are right, that's why I said I'm sorry.

I did what you saying a lot in the past, 10 and more years ago: by developing some applications for AUR and pulling different packages to AUR and modifying wiki as well.

Now I'm old, and I don't have time to make the OS the target of my work, should be justy something that allow me to work in the proper way.

Life's changing and spare time in my case completely disappeared. From what you said it means I've to drop off Arch in favor to something else, I couldn't afford this philosophy anymore.