[bug #34464] gfxmenu: A blank screen with a gfxmenu theme.

[Towheed Mohammed]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?34464>

                 Summary: gfxmenu: A blank screen with a gfxmenu theme.
                 Project: GNU GRUB
            Submitted by: towheedm
            Submitted on: Mon 03 Oct 2011 12:21:09 AM GMT
                Category: User Interface
                Severity: Major
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Software Error
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: towheedm
        Originator Email: address@hidden
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                 Release: 
                 Release: other
         Reproducibility: Every Time
         Planned Release: None

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Details:

I am using a very basic theme using the gfxmenu theming engine.
The theme only sets a background image and displays the menu items using a
DejaVu .pf2 font created using the grub-mkfont utility.

This was tested on Ubuntu Natty using grub version 1.99~rc1-13ubuntu3.

What should happen:
The theme should be displayed allowing me to select a menu item to boot.

What happens:
A blank screen is shown and the keyboard stops responding (using a Logitech
MX300 wireless keyboard).

What I did to rectify it:
After several hours of testing, I found that the problem was two fold:
1. The first involves GRUB setting the default GFXMODE. In previous versions
of GRUB2, if GRUB_GFXMODE was commented out in /etc/default/grub, it was
automatically set to 640x480 in 10_linux. However, this behavior has changed
and if the line is commented out, GRUB now sets it to 'auto'. I would assume,
it would iterate through the list of valid vbe modes and select the first
working mode. Unfortunately for me, it selects 640x400x256, which works in
text mode, but causes a black screen and a hung keyboard with gfxmenu.  A
quick fix was to
uncomment the GRUB_GFXMODE variable.

2.  The second involves assigning each menu entry to a class. If the class
parameter is not specified for ANY menu entries, the theme does not load and a
blank screen is produced. This was fixed in 10_linux by changing this line:
echo "submenu \"Previous Linux versions\" {"
to:
echo "submenu \"Previous Linux versions\" --class menuitem {"

The menu entry for memtest86+ must also be assigned to a class by changing the
menuentry line:
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
to:
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" --class memtest {

After using the above fixes the theme displays properly.

My video card is an nvidia GeForce FX5200. This problem was also present for
another user with an nvidia Quadro FX 1500M.

Please note that for some reason, this problem results in a hung keyboard.





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