This is easy but there's a couple steps that you have to know about in order to deal with it easily. I'll write it up better sometime but in the mean time here's most of the info you need.
Re: Getting grubby with Progeny (Score: 5, Informative)
by abo on Monday, August 20 @ 02:58:04 BST
(User Info) http://sourceforge.net/users/abo/
I've been through this and largely figured it out. I haven't yet sent bug-reports, but unless someone beats me I'll get around to it.
The problem is Progeny's grub+kernel setup is not 100% compatible with Debians. IMHO Progeny's approach is the way to go, but it needs to be fixed to work with Debian's kernels.
Progeny's grub installs a script called "update-boot-loader" using the Debian alternatives thingy. This script when executed updates the grub file /boot/grub/menu.lst (or whatever) for all the kernels found in /boot. This script is called by the post-inst script of all the Progeny kernel packages.
The neat thing about this approach is it allows various boot-loaders to install their own "update-boot-loader" script. Using the proper Debian "alternatives" means multiple loaders can be installed and uninstalled at will without wierd clashes or problems. It also means the kernel packages can be boot-loader agnostic, so they don't need to know about all the various boot loaders, but can still correctly update them.
The problems arise because the Debian kernel packages don't call update-boot-loader, so the grub menu's are not updated. However, calling update-boot-loader manually after installing a Debian package reveals a problem with Progeny's update-boot-loader script.
The update-boot-loader assumes that the initrd image will end in .gz. However, the Debian kernels use cramfs, which is already compressed, so the initrd images are not gzipped. This causes the update-boot-loader script to specify the default initrd image which is the Progeny default kernel image, which doesn't work.
Note that when using Progeny kernel packages with Debian bootloader packages you will also hit a problem... the Progeny kernel will attempt to run update-boot-image and fail to update the bootloader.
I also recall hitting a problem with Debian kernels requiring updated kernel tools packages which weren't correctly version-dependancied in the Debian kernel package... can't remember the details but if you hit problems, try updating some of the kernel dependancy packages.
So short term solution when installing Debian kernels onto Progeny systems is; manually run "update-boot-loader" after installing kernel, then edit /etc/grub/menu.lst to correct initrd setting.
Long term solution is; file bugs against Debian's grub/lilo/kernel-image packages to support the update-boot-loader alternatives scheme, and file a bug against Progeny's grub/lilo to support Debians non-gz initrd images.