On 2012/05/29 09:15 (GMT-0700) Adam Williamson composed:
On Tue, 2012-05-29 at 10:30 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
Even though I strongly prefer seeing legible white on black framebuffer text
kernel and init messages throughout the boot process, Gfxboot has always been
one of my favorite SuSE things, with cmdline sitting right there ready to
edit on every boot. Did the Grub devs really do something to v2 to make GUI
boot a problem Fedora can't handle?
The fault here isn't really with the grub developers. The problem is
simply that hardware (and firmware) sucks. There are several ways you
can ask a system what graphical modes it supports. Whichever way you
pick, some hardware will give you the wrong answer.
I'm not terribly familiar with gfxboot, but its wiki page -
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Gfxboot - says "gfxboot relies on the VESA
Video BIOS for setting a video mode". This means it will inevitably fail
on some hardware, just as grub2 currently does, unless it grows some
clever heuristics / exceptions.
Judging from the Gfxboot config output below, I don't think there's more than token "reliance" on the VBIOS. NAICT, Gfxboot uses 800x600 if it thinks it can, otherwise falls back to VGA basic 640x480
which AFAIK even the most broken of VBIOS supports.
It sounds like grub2 graphical is about as likely to succeed in any
given config as gfxboot.
I've yet to see catastrophe happen. In contrast, I rarely have seen anything resembling competence on any tty during or after boot on *buntu.
The worst I've seen is it assuming 800x600 when in fact 640x480 is operative, which cuts off some of the right side and bottom. ESC exits to 80x25 plain text mode, so booting is never prevented.
Gfxboot configuration (openSUSE 11.4 'gfxboot --show-config' output):
; Sections are read in the order given in base::layout, with section 'base'
; implicitly added at the end. If a config value is given more than once,
; the first entry wins.
;
; If a screen resolution can't be set, 640x480 is used as fallback (and
; section '640x480' added to the layout list).
;
; If the penguin screen is active, section 'penguin' is automatically added
; to the layout list.
;
; Setting livecd=1 implicitly adds section 'live' to the layout list.
;
; Color values: 24 bit RGB (e.g. 0xff0000 = red).
;
[base]
; theme name
theme=openSUSE
; product name
product=
; other sections to read
layout=800x600,boot
; penguin theme likelihood (in percent, -1 = auto)
penguin=-1
; activate speech output
talk=0
; sound volume (0..100)
volume=70
; menu background transparency (0..255)
menu.transparency=0x20
; default font
font.normal=16x16.fnt
; main menu font
font.large=16x16.fnt
; background image
background=back.jpg
; max. visible main menu items
mainmenu.entries=8
; minimal main menu selection bar width
mainmenu.bar.minwidth=300
; main menu selection bar transparency (0..255)
mainmenu.bar.transparency=150
; main menu colors
mainmenu.bar.color=0xffffff
mainmenu.normal.fg=0xffffff
mainmenu.selected.fg=0x000000
; boot option colors
bootopt.label.fg=0xffffff
bootopt.text.fg=0xffffff
; progress bar color
progress.bar.color=0x295202
; menu colors
menu.normal.bg=0xd8deed
menu.normal.fg=0x000000
menu.selected.bg=0x6c6c6c
menu.selected.fg=0xffffff
; window colors
window.bg=0xd8deed
window.fg=0x000000
window.title.bg=0x217b05
window.title.fg=0xffffff
window.title.error.bg=0xc00000
; help system colors
help.link.fg=0x0000a0
help.link.selected.fg=0xffffff
help.link.selected.bg=0x0000a0
help.highlight.fg=0x009000
; panel colors
panel.fg=0xffffff
panel.title.fg=0xffffff
panel.f-key.fg=0xffe050
; default keymap (e.g. de-latin1-nodeadkeys or cz-lat2-us)
keymap=
; replace underscores ('_') with space in menu entries
_2space=1
[800x600]
; screen size
screen.size=800,600
; upper left corner, if x = -1, center horizontally
mainmenu.pos=-1,170
; boot option input field position
bootopt.pos=263,480
[640x480]
; screen size
screen.size=640,480
; upper left corner, if x = -1, center horizontally
mainmenu.pos=-1,122
; boot option input field position
bootopt.pos=263,380
[penguin]
; upper left corner, if x = -1, center horizontally
mainmenu.pos=220,163
; main menu selection bar transparency (0..255)
mainmenu.bar.transparency=120
; boot option input field position
bootopt.pos=263,490
; background image
background=pback.jpg
[install]
; show welcome animation
welcome=1
; beep when menu is ready
beep=1
; main menu item shown only if iso is tagged for media check
mediacheck=mediachk
; main menu items where user can't add boot options
nobootoptions=harddisk,memtest
; main menu items that are not passed an 'install' parameter
noinstallopt=harddisk,firmware,memtest
; default install method (one of: cdrom, slp, ftp, http, nfs, smb, hd; default: cdrom)
install=
; default repo location
install.http.server=
install.http.path=
install.nfs.server=
install.nfs.path=
install.ftp.server=
install.ftp.path=
install.ftp.user=
install.ftp.password=
install.smb.server=
install.smb.share=
install.smb.path=
install.smb.domain=
install.smb.user=
install.smb.password=
install.hd.device=
install.hd.path=
; default driver update (one of: yes, no, file, url; default: no)
dud=
; if 'dud=file': file name on DVD
dud.file=
; if 'dud=url': URL
dud.url=
; if 'dud=url': menu item name (default = 'URL')
dud.url.name=
; serial line setup (up to four lines)
; format: port,baud,dev
; - port: 0-3: first four BIOS serial lines (COM1-COM4); >=4: I/O port (0x3f8)
; - baud: baud rate (e.g. 115200); 0 = autodetect (considers baud rates >= 9600)
; - dev: linux device name (e.g. ttyS0)
; - all lines are set up with 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit
; - if the bootloader also has a serial line setup, the port is
; automatically used
serial.line0=0,0,ttyS0
serial.line1=1,0,ttyS1
serial.line2=
serial.line3=
; show keymap menu as submenu in lang dialog
keymap.submenu=1
; check min memory size
memcheck=0
; apppend *.spl to initrd
spl=1
; move down one menu entry the first time an F-key is used
autodown=1
; F-key assignments
; value can be one of: lang, video, install, kernelopts, dud, bits, keymap,
; profile, restore
; note1: 'bits' is only shown on x86_64, 'profile' only when a file 'profile'
; exists, 'restore' only when there is a boot entry 'restore'
; note2: F1 is always help, F9 enables speech output, F10 exits gfxboot
key.F2=lang
key.F3=video
key.F4=install
key.F5=kernelopts
key.F6=dud
key.F7=bits
; add 'lang' option with current locale
addopt.lang=1
; add 'keytable' option with current keymap
addopt.keytable=1
[boot]
; show welcome animation
welcome=0
; beep when menu is ready
beep=0
; show keymap menu as submenu in lang dialog
keymap.submenu=0
; system restore menu entry
restore.title=
; F-key assignments, see install section for doc
key.F2=lang
key.F3=profile
key.F4=keymap
key.F11=restore
; add 'lang' option with current locale
addopt.lang=0
; add 'keytable' option with current keymap
addopt.keytable=0
[live]
; set livecd flag
livecd=1
; move down one menu entry the first time an F-key is used
autodown=0
; F-key assignments, see install section for doc
key.F2=lang
key.F3=video
key.F4=kernelopts
key.F5=
key.F6=
key.F7=
key.F8=
key.F11=
key.F12=
; add 'lang' option with current locale
addopt.lang=1
; add 'keytable' option with current keymap
addopt.keytable=0
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
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