Re: Converting Ubuntu CDs to GRUB

[Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko]

On 05/20/2010 07:35 PM, Colin Watson wrote:
> I would like to convert Ubuntu CDs to boot using GRUB for Ubuntu 10.10.
>
>   
I'll gladly support this in any way I can.
> This is a bit ambitious.  We're currently using ISOLINUX with SuSE's
> gfxboot extensions, and extensive theming to offer various custom menus.
> A number of the facilities we depend on there aren't yet present in
> gfxmenu, and while I can probably get away without all of them I don't
> think I'll be able to strip it all the way down to the point of a single
> boot menu.
>
> Nevertheless, I think this is worth pursuing for various reasons: we're
> probably going to need to use GRUB to support EFI-based machines anyway;
> maintaining gfxboot-theme-ubuntu is really no fun at all; and I'd like
> to see GRUB get to the point where it can handle these requirements
> easily.  Judging from the images on the front page of
> http://grub.gibibit.com/, I gather that this was at least considered as
> a goal for gfxmenu!
>
> I've written up a brief description of our needs here:
>
>   https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/Specs/MaverickCDBoot
>
> I think that the extensions we'd need in gfxmenu amount to:
>
>   * Supplementary menu support, with menus bound to keys
>   
As we discussed on IRC probably the best way to support it is to have
active and selectable buttonson the bottom of the screen which have a
--hotkey.
Buttons left and right can be reassign to whatever makes sense for
graphical menu.
Since up and down keys are shared between text and graphical menu one
should order the entries in such a way that navigating up and down also
make sense in gfxmenu.
For implementing separate selectable entries (buttons) you need to add
support for vertical menu and to have the ability to hide/show classes
at separate menu. E.g.

vertical-list
{
    class = "buttons,help"
    ...
}

list
{
   class = "remaining"
   ...
}

"remaining" is a magic word which means "everything not matching
anything else".
>    * Either scrolling menus or grid menus, preferably grid
>   
I'm ok with both of them.
>   * The ability to bind functions to menus to process selections
>   
What do you mean? We execute the code in menuentry body on enter. Or do
you mean anything else?
>   * Checkbox widgets
>   
I think it should be sth like in grub.cfg

checkbox "Safe mode" {
   set safe=1
}

Then it will be rendered ncurses-like in text and with a checkbox in
gfxmenu.
> Needless to say I'm willing to take on the bulk of the work here, but
> I'm very new to gfxmenu and I would greatly appreciate review from those
> who've spent more time thinking about it and hacking on it.  In
> particular, I'd appreciate thoughts on how this kind of thing might best
> be represented in extensions to the theme format.
>
> Thanks,
>
>   


-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko

signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature