Re: GRUB update problems

[Felix Zielcke]

Am Dienstag, den 05.01.2010, 13:58 -0500 schrieb Henry W. Peters:
> 
> Felix Zielcke wrote:
> > Am Dienstag, den 05.01.2010, 13:07 -0500 schrieb Henry W. Peters:
> >   
> >> I run Debian Lenny sid/squeeze, the updater this morning just
> >> "updated" 
> >> my GRUB2 version... (not sure of the version).
> >>     
> >
> > normally it doestn't make sense to have stable (lenny), testing
> > (squeeze) and unstable (sid) in /etc/apt/sources.list
> > Usually you only use one of them.
> >
> >   
> >> I probably need to get the display resolution in GRUB to correspond
> to
> >>
> >> my ACTUAL desktop resolution... I'm guessing; so, until GRUB  works
> >> out 
> >> what appears to me, to be a 'bug' (?), or I can know what to do to 
> >> remedy... perhaps there is a workaround someone can suggest?
> >>     
> >
> > I think you didn't set a device in the debconf prompt which asked
> for
> > one.
> > You need to run grub-install to update it. Else the graphical
> terminal
> > won't get anymore enabled by update-grub/grub-mkconfig.
> >
> > And also check GRUB_GFXMODE in /etc/default/grub, which is the
> > resolution for GRUB if the graphical terminal is enabled.
> >
> >   
> Not to seem ungrateful, but grubspeak is not too helpful at the
> moment, 
> but nonetheless, I did try several of your suggestions (perhaps not 
> correctly, because of maybe not understanding too well?)"
> 
> # grub-install
> 
> This was the message I got... I have no clue as to what "grub-install 
> [OPTION] install_device" means... this is to say, what is the option?

The device where you want to have GRUB in MBR/bootsector.
I.e. /dev/sda or /dev/sdb etc. Choose the disk your BIOS boots from.
Or if you don't know just install to all you have.

> Then I did check the /etc/default/grub file, & this is what I got (I 
> took out the '# at the GRUB_GFXMODE=1440x900' & changed the 
> resolution... I tried doing an '#update-grub' both in the terminal
> while 
> booted & at startup in the recovery mode. Nothing seems to change... 
> maybe it's the 'install_device not specified.' problem??

Well if running update-grub shows an error about video.lst, then you
must run grub-install first.

Else check the generated /boot/grub/grub.cfg
It should contain something like that:

if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
  set gfxmode=1440x900
  insmod gfxterm
  insmod vbe
  if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
    # For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
    # understand terminal_output
    terminal gfxterm
  fi
fi


-- 
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer and GNU GRUB developer