Grub (legacy) in 12.3 and GUI

Hallo,
I have lost the Grub GUI since some time now, but I did nothing to restore it because I planned an upgrade to 12.3. The upgrade is completed, grub is re-installed, gfxboot too, but I have no graphical menu in Grub, just the old-plain text. How do I configure grub to use GUI and not Text?

Seems like you need to tell us just how you did that upgrade? Are you still trying to use Grub Legacy or have you advanced to Grub 2? Do you get a graphics desktop to start and if so, what desktop did you select?

Thank You,

My question is very specific: I want to have GUI, not just plain text, in Legacy Grub Menu. I do not run Grub 2.

Please be aware that most of us don’t have a GRUB Legacy install available to compare / test stuff.
AFAIR the you need a theme to be installed, and some of the graphics are in /boot/message. Is that file there?

And please post content of /boot/grub/menu.lst, between CODE tags.

The graphical boot menu is contained in the file /boot/message, check that that file exists (it is part of the package “gfxboot-branding-openSUSE”, so (re)install that if the file is missing).

And please open YaST->System->Boot Loader, choose “Boot Loader Options” and check that “Graphical Menu File” is indeed set to “/boot/message”…

On 2013-06-30 16:46, Knurpht wrote:
>
> tpe;2568526 Wrote:
>> My question is very specific: I want to have GUI, not just plain text,
>> in Legacy Grub Menu. I do not run Grub 2.
>
> Please be aware that most of us don’t have a GRUB Legacy install
> available to compare / test stuff.

I do :slight_smile:

My upgrade from 12.1 to 12.3 did not change grub 1 to grub 2: I have the
same grub as before. I don’t know if they will do that upgrade in the
future. It is not even possible to switch grub version during the
upgrade, although it can be done later (but I haven’t bothered (yet)).

> AFAIR the you need a theme to be installed, and some of the graphics
> are in /boot/message. Is that file there?

Another reason to have a text grub can be because of the wrong video
mode on boot.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

My upgrade from 12.1 to 12.3 did not change grub 1 to grub 2: I have the
same grub as before. I don’t know if they will do that upgrade in the
future. It is not even possible to switch grub version during the
upgrade, although it can be done later (but I haven’t bothered (yet)).

I have similar experience with 11.4 to 12.2 upgrade, although I subsequently made the switch to grub2.

I too had a similar experience when I did a 12.1 to 12.2 install – grub-legacy remained. I only switched to grub2 later during another (re-)install (from scratch) on the system (after having first done a secure erase on the driver i.e. completely wiping it). After some initial hesitation with that, I’ve discovered that I quite like grub2 … though, there is certainly something to be said for grub-legacy’s simplicity.

Close to what is described here,
I strongly suspect in these cases where a legacy subsystem might still exist, while pointing <only> to a 12.3 repo source (eg Install DVD or OSS) and then doing a “zypper dup” should bring the system all the way up to current stable with no strange anomalies.

TSU

But grub legacy is still part of the distribution, as is lilo f.e.
So zypper dup will not uninstall it. In fact grub legacy is still installed by default alongside grub2 even on a fresh 13.1 M2 installation.

And the bootloader is set up by perl-Bootloader which is respecting the setting in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader.
As long as no package explicitly changes the (Administrator’s) setting in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader no other bootloader will be activated.
And this shouldn’t happen anyway IMHO since after all it is the Administrator’s choice which bootloader to use! :wink:

Yes, I agree – it would not be particularly good behaviour if it went about changing the bootloader … still, I have to admit that (at the time that I had done that upgrade) I did not know what the behaviour was going to be (i.e was it going to end up being changed on me (aka some developer thinks they know best) or would it remain untouched)

On 2013-07-01 19:26, tsu2 wrote:

> Close to what is described here,
> I strongly suspect in these cases where a legacy subsystem might still
> exist, while pointing <only> to a 12.3 repo source (eg Install DVD or
> OSS) and then doing a “zypper dup” should bring the system all the way
> up to current stable with no strange anomalies.

Keeping legacy grub is no anomaly, it is intentionally not upgraded by
“zypper dup” till the packagers signal that it must be upgraded.
/They/ choose not to. It is no decision of the system admin at all.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

On 2013-07-01 21:46, Tyler K wrote:
>
> wolfi323;2568754 Wrote:
>> And this shouldn’t happen anyway IMHO since after all it is the
>> Administrator’s choice which bootloader to use! :wink:

> Yes, I agree – it would not be particularly good behaviour if it went
> about changing the bootloader … still, I have to admit that (at the
> time that I had done that upgrade) I did not know what the behaviour was
> going to be (i.e was it going to end up being changed on me (aka some
> developer thinks they know best) or would it remain untouched)

Notice that to decide upgrade to grub 2, they have to modify the offline
upgrade yast modules so that they allow configuring grub during the
upgrade, and I don’t see them doing it.

Instead, either they’ll keep grub 1 available for ages (I don’t think
so), or when an upgrade is attempted with grub 1 installed, the upgrade
will abort and tell the admin to switch manually to grub 2.

This is what happened when old style partition naming (hda, sda, etc)
was changed to the new style (by-label, by uid, by path). The upgrade
aborted and asked the admin to edit fstab, reboot, and attempt again.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

fair enough point :wink:

Instead, either they’ll keep grub 1 available for ages (I don’t think
so), or when an upgrade is attempted with grub 1 installed, the upgrade
will abort and tell the admin to switch manually to grub 2.

This is what happened when old style partition naming (hda, sda, etc)
was changed to the new style (by-label, by uid, by path). The upgrade
aborted and asked the admin to edit fstab, reboot, and attempt again.
the switch over to uefi in newer hardware will likely expedite this changing of the guard

On 2013-07-01 22:46, Tyler K wrote:

> the switch over to uefi in newer hardware will likely expedite this
> changing of the guard

There is a huge number of non uefi systems around. I don’t have any uefi
system here, and will not have any soon unless I win the lottery or
something…

They will have to support plain bios systems for a decade at least.

But they will push the change to grub 2 soon. Probably when they port it
on SLES. Our devs hate maintaining two boot systems: some years back
they removed “lilo” officially and went to grub instead, even if many
people complained (there are still people using lilo with openSUSE).

Perhaps 13.1 or 13.2 will not have grub 1. Some one could ask in the
project mail list, or the factory one, for an estimate.

I don’t know if there is a technical reason to keep grub 1? I do prefer
grub 1, it is far simpler for the admin (me), but I don’t know of a
technical reason why it /should/ be maintained. Ie, use cases where grub
2 does not work.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

But lilo IS still included in the distribution! (12.3 as well as factory)

It’s just that grub2 is default for a fresh install.

And grub legacy has seen absolutely no development for years (current v0.97 was released 2005 I think).
Why should they drop it now?

Hi
And as of SLE 11 SP3 that was released today;


zypper se grub lilo

Refreshing service 'nu_novell_com'.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...


S | Name             | Summary                                               | Type      
--+------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+-----------
i | elilo            | EFI Linux Loader                                      | package   
  | elilo            | EFI Linux Loader                                      | srcpackage
i | grub             | Grand Unified Boot Loader                             | package   
  | grub             | Grand Unified Boot Loader                             | srcpackage
  | grub2            | Bootloader with support for Linux, Multiboot and more | srcpackage
i | grub2-x86_64-efi | Bootloader with support for Linux, Multiboot and more | package   
i | lilo             | The Linux Loader, a Boot Menu                         | package   
  | lilo             | The Linux Loader, a Boot Menu                         | srcpackage

cat /etc/SuSE-release 
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64)
VERSION = 11
PATCHLEVEL = 3

On 2013-07-01 23:56, wolfi323 wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2568812 Wrote:
>> But they will push the change to grub 2 soon. Probably when they port it
>> on SLES. Our devs hate maintaining two boot systems: some years back
>> they removed “lilo” officially and went to grub instead, even if many
>> people complained (there are still people using lilo with openSUSE).
>>
>> Perhaps 13.1 or 13.2 will not have grub 1. Some one could ask in the
>> project mail list, or the factory one, for an estimate.
>>
> But lilo IS still included in the distribution! (12.3 as well as
> factory)

I know. But if you go to yast, boot loader module, and select lilo as
booter, you get a dialog that says “Warning - the lilo is not supported
now”.

The module is still there, but has not been maintained in years. If a
bug is found, they do nothing. The complaining we did when they said
that lilo was not going to be supported got that it was not removed. It
was left to be, unmaintained.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

On 2013-07-01 23:56, wolfi323 wrote:
> And grub legacy has seen absolutely no development for years (current
> v0.97 was released 2005 I think).

From upstream; it has been heavily patched by susers, because grub 2 was
not ready for deployment on all SUSE/openSUSE supported scenarios. And
when it was, then yast boot module had to be modified to support grub2,
and while all this was done, they had to maintain grub 1.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)