Re: Grub2 almost does what I want

[Jordan Uggla]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 10:27 PM, Felix Miata <address@hidden> wrote:
> If it wasn't already there or available, how could a user edit cmdline at
> boot time to delete it or change it to something temporarily preferable?

They wouldn't edit the linux cmdline, they would add "gfxpayload=foo"
(on its own line).

> You
> think every user is content for every boot to always proceed identically?

No, I do not.

> Boot time cmdline edit, along with not needing to be rerun before reboot to
> have any config change take effect, are two of the most profound things that
> makes Grub superior to Lilo.
>
>
> Some "new" installations don't use new hardware, and are done only to
> maintain access to security updates and/or gain access to software that
> hadn't previously existed. Some perfectly good gfxchips are not supported by
> KMS. Without vga=, how is the kernel supposed to get those old chips into a
> suitable framebuffer mode?

Through the same means that it always has (well, technically I believe
it has changed internally with the 32 bit linux loading protocol),
which includes reading the information passed to it by grub (which is
*not* passed through the linux cmdline).

> Vga= for such chips does still do what it did
> pre-KMS. As long as kernels still respond to it, people don't need
> deprecation warnings from their boot loader about a kernel video function.

The kernel does not respond to it, and never has. It has always been
the bootloader that responded to it, as documented in
https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt .

>
> How nice it is (not) to have new "improved" versions of init systems and
> boot loaders tell us we must change to using cmdline options or similarly
> obtuse configuration options that require 2-10 times as much typing and
> recollection power to perform same function as required in the past.
> 1024x768x24 may be a bit easier for n00bs to wrap their brains around, but
> it's not helpful to those of us who learned what vga= itself referred to and
> what relevant vga= options meant last century and who prefer less typing to
> more typing.

Yes, gfxmode=1024x768x24 takes more typing than "vga=792". That is true.

> And it's certainly not welcome without adding desirable new
> function in the process to consume more of the precious resource that is the
> kernel cmdline.

I don't understand this comment.

-- 
Jordan Uggla (Jordan_U on irc.freenode.net)