Allow seamless switch from Grub2 graphical mode to kernel graphical mode

The new Linux loader linux32/initrd32 doestn't switch anymore to text mode before loading the kernel.
It's just not yet the default in Debian and so Ubuntu.

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 06:17:15PM -0000, Felix Zielcke wrote:
> The new Linux loader linux32/initrd32 doestn't switch anymore to text
> mode before loading the kernel. It's just not yet the default in
> Debian and so Ubuntu.

Oh, that sounds good, thanks. (For those playing along at home, it's
waiting for "gfxpayload" support;
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/grub-devel/2009-05/msg00207.html is
the most recent mail about this that I could find.)

One tricky bit is that, ideally, we'd determine the native resolution
somehow - i.e. the resolution that a KMS-enabled Linux kernel will come
up in by default - so that GRUB and Linux use the same mode, thereby
minimising mode switches. On laptop panels, for instance, it usually
looks better to use the native resolution rather than something like
1024x768.

Maybe we can just extract the current resolution from /sys or similar at
grub-mkconfig time, although that's not obviously always going to work.
You might not be running the KMS-enabled kernel yet!

gfxpayload has been already commited and is in the experimental (and karmic now) package
Currently grub2 doestn't support resizing the background image but IIRC Colin D Bennetts gfxmenu stuff has code for it.
If the background image is smaller then the gfxterm resolution, it's just filling the top left corner of the screen (in the size of the resolution of it) but everything else is black.

The freshly new merged version in karmic has this feature now.
But I leave it up to the Ubuntu people to close the report.
Currently there is no support in grub-mkconfig for gfxpayload but someone already sent a patch for it.

On my multi boot system, the grub2 menu have been created by Karmic.
Today, when booting a warning tell me to use, for the first time, gfxpayload instead of vga.
So, grub2 in Ubuntu need to be updated as we can use it in Jaunty too.

This isn't closable quite yet. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kernel-team/2009-August/006773.html has a record of my attempts to make this provide a smooth transition.

Any news about this ?

Work on this is currently tracked as:

  https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/packageselection-foundations-n-grub2-boot-framebuffer

This bug was fixed in the package grub2 - 1.99~20101210-1ubuntu1

---------------
grub2 (1.99~20101210-1ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  [ Colin Watson ]
  * Resynchronise with Debian experimental. Remaining changes:
    - Adjust for default Ubuntu boot options ("quiet splash").
    - Default to hiding the menu; holding down Shift at boot will show it.
    - Set a monochromatic theme for Ubuntu.
    - Apply Ubuntu GRUB Legacy changes to legacy update-grub script: title,
      recovery mode, quiet option, tweak how memtest86+ is displayed, and
      use UUIDs where appropriate.
    - Fix backslash-escaping in merge_debconf_into_conf.
    - Remove "GNU/Linux" from default distributor string.
    - Add crashkernel= options if kdump and makedumpfile are available.
    - If other operating systems are installed, then automatically unhide
      the menu. Otherwise, if GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT is 0, then use keystatus
      if available to check whether Shift is pressed. If it is, show the
      menu, otherwise boot immediately. If keystatus is not available, then
      fall back to a short delay interruptible with Escape.
    - Allow Shift to interrupt 'sleep --interruptible'.
    - Don't display introductory message about line editing unless we're
      actually offering a shell prompt. Don't clear the screen just before
      booting if we never drew the menu in the first place.
    - Remove some verbose messages printed before reading the configuration
      file.
    - Suppress progress messages as the kernel and initrd load for
      non-recovery kernel menu entries.
    - Change prepare_grub_to_access_device to handle filesystems
      loop-mounted on file images.
    - Ignore devices loop-mounted from files in 10_linux.
    - Show the boot menu if the previous boot failed, that is if it failed
      to get to the end of one of the normal runlevels.
    - Don't generate /boot/grub/device.map during grub-install or
      grub-mkconfig by default.
    - Adjust upgrade version checks for Ubuntu.
    - Don't display "GRUB loading" unless Shift is held down.
    - Adjust versions of grub-doc and grub-legacy-doc conflicts to tolerate
      our backport of the grub-doc split.
    - Fix LVM/RAID probing in the absence of /boot/grub/device.map.
    - Look for .mo files in /usr/share/locale-langpack as well, in
      preference.
    - Make sure GRUB_TIMEOUT isn't quoted unnecessarily.
    - Probe all devices in 'grub-probe --target=drive' if
      /boot/grub/device.map is missing.
    - Build-depend on qemu-kvm rather than qemu-system for grub-pc tests.
    - Use qemu rather than qemu-system-i386.
    - Program vesafb on BIOS systems rather than efifb.
    - Add a grub-rescue-efi-amd64 package containing a rescue CD-ROM image
      for EFI-AMD64.
    - On Wubi, don't ask for an install device, but just update wubildr
      using the diverted grub-install.
    - When embedding the core image in a post-MBR gap, check for and avoid
      sectors matching any of a list of known signatures.
    - Disable video_bochs and video_cirrus on PC BIOS systems, as probing
      PCI space seems to break on some systems.
    - Downgrade "ACPI shutdown failed" error to a...