Re: Increase grub timeout
Matthew Garrett mj...@srcf.ucam.org writes: [...] [...] But still, the sensible path is to make reasonable accommodations for this sort of thing. Let's face it, if we're waiting on Sony or HP to fix this, we'll be waiting a while. Or, alternatively, we can actually look into the problem and determine whether there's an elegant way of handling it. Not alternatively: additionally or concurrently. - FChE -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
tis 2010-05-18 klockan 12:11 -0400 skrev Bill Nottingham: If you're really concerned about needing the timeouts when 'normal' bootup doesn't work, then why not write a patch that simply checks the time since last bootup (via mtime on grub.conf, or wahtever), and shows the menu if it's less than some predefined interval (say, 3 minutes?) How accurate time does grub have? It can read the clock via BIOS and get a +/- 13 hour accurate time, I guess. Maybe a clean shutdown could cause touch /boot/grub.good (or whatever). If grub.conf is newer than grub.good then add a few seconds to the timeout and show the menu? That avoids relying on the clock. One problem: Once you do whatever it was you needed to do in grub to get your system back, you need to go edit grub.conf right away before you reboot because you won't get another chance. /Alexander -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 10:31 +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote: On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 00:02 +0100, Adam Williamson wrote: snip (FWIW, I'd prefer a non-zero timeout in all cases, for reasons others have already mentioned). And I'd want a zero timeout in most cases because my boot works, and I don't want to see more changes in panel resolution. Those are indeed the trade-offs. I was just registering my opinion quickly, seeing as how I was writing a post anyway. -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 00:02 +0100, Adam Williamson wrote: With an install _not_ of the kind described above, you currently get a 0 timeout, which is what's mostly under discussion now: whether we should have a non-zero timeout for all installations, even single-boot. Of course it shouldn't be zero. This is what I was saying yesterday. Now if Fedora is really targeting end users who are non-technical (can we decide this finally, sometime, please?) then this is valid. But if it's true that we favor experienced computing users, it should not be zero. Jon. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 10:34:22AM -0400, Jon Masters wrote: Of course it shouldn't be zero. This is what I was saying yesterday. Now if Fedora is really targeting end users who are non-technical (can we decide this finally, sometime, please?) then this is valid. But if it's true that we favor experienced computing users, it should not be zero. The logic here is unclear. Technical users are surely the ones most able to deal with this situation? I'll point out here that Windows gives no visible prompt to obtain bootup options and the world doesn't seem to have ended, so if we have machines where it's currently *impossible* to get to the grub menu then that sounds like a bug in grub that needs to be rectified. -- Matthew Garrett | mj...@srcf.ucam.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 15:43 +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 10:34:22AM -0400, Jon Masters wrote: Of course it shouldn't be zero. This is what I was saying yesterday. Now if Fedora is really targeting end users who are non-technical (can we decide this finally, sometime, please?) then this is valid. But if it's true that we favor experienced computing users, it should not be zero. The logic here is unclear. As a technical user, it's another thing I immediately have to fix post-install, usually by rebooting a couple of times to make sure I get into grub at just the right moment. But moreso, it's become expected on Linux systems that one will get some kind of bootloader prompt/timeout. If it were up to me, there'd be a full bootloader prompt back too :) Jon. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 10:34 -0400, Jon Masters wrote: On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 00:02 +0100, Adam Williamson wrote: With an install _not_ of the kind described above, you currently get a 0 timeout, which is what's mostly under discussion now: whether we should have a non-zero timeout for all installations, even single-boot. Of course it shouldn't be zero. This is what I was saying yesterday. Now if Fedora is really targeting end users who are non-technical (can we decide this finally, sometime, please?) then this is valid. But if it's true that we favor experienced computing users, it should not be zero. That argument doesn't make any sense. Surely, whether the timeout should be zero or not does not depend on the experience of the user, but on the use case at hands. Several installation to choose from -- give the user time to make a choice Only one OS -- get it running as quickly as possible I am certainly an experienced user, and I am still not in love with staring a a grub screen for so many seconds every boot. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 10:52 -0400, Jon Masters wrote: On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 15:43 +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 10:34:22AM -0400, Jon Masters wrote: Of course it shouldn't be zero. This is what I was saying yesterday. Now if Fedora is really targeting end users who are non-technical (can we decide this finally, sometime, please?) then this is valid. But if it's true that we favor experienced computing users, it should not be zero. The logic here is unclear. As a technical user, it's another thing I immediately have to fix post-install, usually by rebooting a couple of times to make sure I get into grub at just the right moment. But moreso, it's become expected on Linux systems that one will get some kind of bootloader prompt/timeout. Probably because kernel updates often break, and you need a fallback. If we put a bit more trust into our kernel updates, and can start making people a bit angry and filing bugs when there are regressions, maybe we can do away with that crappy crutch. If it were up to me, there'd be a full bootloader prompt back too :) And we'd be using work-arounds to get Macs running under Linux ;) -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tuesday 18 May 2010, Jon Masters wrote: On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 15:43 +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 10:34:22AM -0400, Jon Masters wrote: Of course it shouldn't be zero. This is what I was saying yesterday. Now if Fedora is really targeting end users who are non-technical (can we decide this finally, sometime, please?) then this is valid. But if it's true that we favor experienced computing users, it should not be zero. The logic here is unclear. As a technical user, it's another thing I immediately have to fix post-install, Ditto, FWIW. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 11:47 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote: Several installation to choose from -- give the user time to make a choice Only one OS -- get it running as quickly as possible I am certainly an experienced user, and I am still not in love with staring a a grub screen for so many seconds every boot. I am in love with having a system that boots. And experience shows that I'm in the grub prompt quite often. Now admittedly, I'm doing kernel builds and the like, but even when I'm not, I'll often need to stick a parameter on a kernel boot line or choose a kernel to run. And then there's the bad upgrade[0] case in which grub proves useful too. Jon. [0] Fedora kernels are generally high quality, but the overall upgrade philosophy (or non-philosophy) espoused on this list means that the kernel is just one of many packages yum is told never to touch. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 16:49 +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote: If we put a bit more trust into our kernel updates, and can start making people a bit angry and filing bugs when there are regressions, maybe we can do away with that crappy crutch. User anger really isn't a good motivator. If it were up to me, there'd be a full bootloader prompt back too :) And we'd be using work-arounds to get Macs running under Linux ;) Yes, if it were up to me we would be shipping a lot more workarounds to make things work out of the box today and not 6-12 months from now, but that's a completely different story/thread. Jon. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
Jon Masters (jonat...@jonmasters.org) said: If we put a bit more trust into our kernel updates, and can start making people a bit angry and filing bugs when there are regressions, maybe we can do away with that crappy crutch. User anger really isn't a good motivator. If you're really concerned about needing the timeouts when 'normal' bootup doesn't work, then why not write a patch that simply checks the time since last bootup (via mtime on grub.conf, or wahtever), and shows the menu if it's less than some predefined interval (say, 3 minutes?) Bill -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 12:11 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote: Jon Masters (jonat...@jonmasters.org) said: If we put a bit more trust into our kernel updates, and can start making people a bit angry and filing bugs when there are regressions, maybe we can do away with that crappy crutch. User anger really isn't a good motivator. If you're really concerned about needing the timeouts when 'normal' bootup doesn't work, then why not write a patch that simply checks the time since last bootup (via mtime on grub.conf, or wahtever), and shows the menu if it's less than some predefined interval (say, 3 minutes?) That's actually a good idea. Doesn't help with my desire to have a grub timeout available always, but it's a reasonably neat solution and it does at least mean we get a timeout if we're likely not booting. I like it Bill, thanks for the suggestion. Jon. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On 05/18/2010 12:18 PM, Jon Masters wrote: On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 12:11 -0400, Bill Nottingham wrote: Jon Masters (jonat...@jonmasters.org) said: If we put a bit more trust into our kernel updates, and can start making people a bit angry and filing bugs when there are regressions, maybe we can do away with that crappy crutch. User anger really isn't a good motivator. If you're really concerned about needing the timeouts when 'normal' bootup doesn't work, then why not write a patch that simply checks the time since last bootup (via mtime on grub.conf, or wahtever), and shows the menu if it's less than some predefined interval (say, 3 minutes?) That's actually a good idea. Doesn't help with my desire to have a grub timeout available always, but it's a reasonably neat solution and it does at least mean we get a timeout if we're likely not booting. I like it Bill, thanks for the suggestion. I'd be interested in taking a patch to implement something like this, fwiw. -- Peter Space, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
Wait a sec, when the timeout is zero, don't you get access to the grub menu if you hold down the shift key? I always thought that was grub's behaviour, not my PC's behaviour... -- Mat Booth -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 12:05:30PM -0400, Jon Masters wrote: I am in love with having a system that boots. And experience shows that I'm in the grub prompt quite often. Now admittedly, I'm doing kernel builds and the like, but even when I'm not, I'll often need to stick a parameter on a kernel boot line or choose a kernel to run. And then there's the bad upgrade[0] case in which grub proves useful too. Nobody has suggested Grub should not be available. Having a timeout of 0 doesn't prevent any of the things you want to do. If you're unable to get to grub at all without setting a timeout then that's something that needs fixing, but we're better off exploring *why* your machine is behaving differently rather than bandaiding over it with a timeout and prompt. -- Matthew Garrett | mj...@srcf.ucam.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 02:14:45PM -0700, Robert Relyea wrote: On 05/18/2010 07:43 AM, Matthew Garrett wrote: The logic here is unclear. Technical users are surely the ones most able to deal with this situation? I'll point out here that Windows gives no visible prompt to obtain bootup options and the world doesn't seem to have ended, so if we have machines where it's currently *impossible* to get to the grub menu then that sounds like a bug in grub that needs to be rectified. Take your Windows system and induce a failure during boot (like powering off in the middle). I like the 2 boot time out options. If you clear the 'successful boot' flag every time you start grub (after remembering what it said so you can set the appropriate timeout) and set it again whenever the system achieves the desirable 'boot state' then grub can detect boot failures on the fly and increase the timeout if one is detected. Yes, the failed boot menu is pretty handy. Downside: grub would need write access to a filesystem (or some other permanment store) at boot time. We have this for SaveDefault. It ought to be possible to extend it and then provide an application that resets the flag at the end of boot. -- Matthew Garrett | mj...@srcf.ucam.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 22:25 +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 02:14:45PM -0700, Robert Relyea wrote: I like the 2 boot time out options. If you clear the 'successful boot' flag every time you start grub (after remembering what it said so you can set the appropriate timeout) and set it again whenever the system achieves the desirable 'boot state' then grub can detect boot failures on the fly and increase the timeout if one is detected. Yes, the failed boot menu is pretty handy. Downside: grub would need write access to a filesystem (or some other permanment store) at boot time. We have this for SaveDefault. It ought to be possible to extend it and then provide an application that resets the flag at the end of boot. Yes, as I already observed: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2010-May/136288.html -- Matt -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 15:43 +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 10:34:22AM -0400, Jon Masters wrote: Of course it shouldn't be zero. This is what I was saying yesterday. Now if Fedora is really targeting end users who are non-technical (can we decide this finally, sometime, please?) then this is valid. But if it's true that we favor experienced computing users, it should not be zero. The logic here is unclear. Technical users are surely the ones most able to deal with this situation? I'll point out here that Windows gives no visible prompt to obtain bootup options and the world doesn't seem to have ended I always enjoy the 'it's okay, everyone, we only have to be as good as Windows!' argument. =) Indeed the world hasn't ended, but certainly a lot of us get called halfway across town on weekends to 'fix the computer' in this sort of case. From a later post of yours: If you're unable to get to grub at all without setting a timeout then that's something that needs fixing, but we're better off exploring *why* your machine is behaving differently rather than bandaiding over it with a timeout and prompt. We can only take this Fedora principle so far. There are many bits of code in the kernel which work around broken ACPI / BIOS behaviour (as you well know, sorry for the egg-sucking lesson). If we were being really annoying literalists we (well, rather 'kernel developers' than 'we', but many of them are Fedora / RH people) would never do this; we'd close all the bugs with a note to the reporter to go and get their motherboard manufacturer to fix it. Being sensible people, we recognize there really *is* a limit to the 'we shouldn't work around brokenness' argument, and it comes when the brokenness is in the hands of such capricious souls as hardware manufacturers. The systems where holding down a key during boot doesn't bring up grub are badly designed systems, this is perfectly true. But still, the sensible path is to make reasonable accommodations for this sort of thing. Let's face it, if we're waiting on Sony or HP to fix this, we'll be waiting a while. Another +1 for Bill's suggestion, that seems like a nice elegant way of trying to catch the broken cases. -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 11:27:17PM +0100, Adam Williamson wrote: We can only take this Fedora principle so far. There are many bits of code in the kernel which work around broken ACPI / BIOS behaviour (as you well know, sorry for the egg-sucking lesson). If we were being really annoying literalists we (well, rather 'kernel developers' than 'we', but many of them are Fedora / RH people) would never do this; we'd close all the bugs with a note to the reporter to go and get their motherboard manufacturer to fix it. Being sensible people, we recognize there really *is* a limit to the 'we shouldn't work around brokenness' argument, and it comes when the brokenness is in the hands of such capricious souls as hardware manufacturers. The systems where holding down a key during boot doesn't bring up grub are badly designed systems, this is perfectly true. But still, the sensible path is to make reasonable accommodations for this sort of thing. Let's face it, if we're waiting on Sony or HP to fix this, we'll be waiting a while. Or, alternatively, we can actually look into the problem and determine whether there's an elegant way of handling it. -- Matthew Garrett | mj...@srcf.ucam.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 23:27 +0100, Adam Williamson wrote: Another +1 for Bill's suggestion, that seems like a nice elegant way of trying to catch the broken cases. Some distros take this a stage further with the failure safe mode boot option, and that's also not a hugely wrong idea. Jon. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
In article aanlktilubs_7ut0zbk_7rhceohlu9bx82ni-b4189...@mail.gmail.com you wrote: Wait a sec, when the timeout is zero, don't you get access to the grub menu if you hold down the shift key? I always thought that was grub's behaviour, not my PC's behaviour... With an old Compaq machine, the BIOS errors with a 'Stuck key' message if I mash any of the modifiers. This stops the boot before GRUB. Granted it's running F11, but some BIOS's don't like keys being mashed at boot. --Ben -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 16:05 +1000, Chris Jones wrote: I was under the impression that a timeout is intentional/used only if another operating system is detected upon installation. ie. Windows. If no other operating system is detected, then there's no point having a timeout. I strongly disagree. I think it's a sad day we have reached that we're so concerned about pretty booting that we don't keep around even a 1-2 second delay for the technical user we keep saying we're targeting. Jon. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Mon, 17 May 2010 12:35:55 -0400 Jon Masters jonat...@jonmasters.org wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 16:05 +1000, Chris Jones wrote: I was under the impression that a timeout is intentional/used only if another operating system is detected upon installation. ie. Windows. If no other operating system is detected, then there's no point having a timeout. I strongly disagree. I think it's a sad day we have reached that we're so concerned about pretty booting that we don't keep around even a 1-2 second delay for the technical user we keep saying we're targeting. Jon. I concur. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel -- Rares Aioanei fedora.lis...@gmail.com -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 13:46 -0400, Przemek Klosowski wrote: In that case, why default to keeping around more than 1 kernel or installing memtest86? (We do still install memtest86 by default, right?) The usual PC behavior of banging on the keyboard brings the boot menu even if there is no timeout. Don't laugh: banging blindly on the Not always. This varies between systems. I've personally encountered a system where it's almost impossible to hit the grub menu (neither holding down a key nor random bashing reliably gets you to it, you have to try and time a press precisely, and you only get it about 1 try in 5-10; not a lot of fun), and several people have reported similar systems - including some where it simply seems impossible to get to the boot menu with a 0 timeout - in previous discussions about this. -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org http://www.happyassassin.net -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
I was under the impression that a timeout is intentional/used only if another operating system is detected upon installation. ie. Windows. If no other operating system is detected, then there's no point having a timeout. -- Chris Jones Photographic Imaging Professional and Graphic Designer ABN: 98 317 740 240 Photo Resolutions - Photo Printing, Editing and Restorations Web: http://photoresolutions.freehostia.com Email: chrisjo...@comcen.com.au -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Friday 14 May 2010 11:05:13 pm Chris Jones wrote: I was under the impression that a timeout is intentional/used only if another operating system is detected upon installation. ie. Windows. If no other operating system is detected, then there's no point having a timeout. In that case, why default to keeping around more than 1 kernel or installing memtest86? (We do still install memtest86 by default, right?) Regards, -- Conrad Meyer ceme...@u.washington.edu -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
There are many instances in the forums, where, adding a cheat code to the kernel line in grub will solve a problem, but, if one doesn't have access to grub at boot-up, the solution is made more difficult. Even the act of booting to init 3 to make a diagnosis by looking at the logs requires a rescue disk when there is no access to the grub screen. Installations aren't always seamless, a timeout of 1 to 3 seconds makes the recovery easier. -Original Message- From: Chris Jones chrisjo...@comcen.com.au To: Development discussions related to Fedora devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Sat, May 15, 2010 2:05 am Subject: Re: Increase grub timeout I was under the impression that a timeout is intentional/used only if another operating system is detected upon installation. ie. Windows. If no other operating system is detected, then there's no point having a timeout. -- Chris Jones Photographic Imaging Professional and Graphic Designer ABN: 98 317 740 240 Photo Resolutions - Photo Printing, Editing and Restorations Web: http://photoresolutions.freehostia.com Email: chrisjo...@comcen.com.au -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
My home server was running Fedora 10 and I tried to preupgrade it to F12, however the F12 kernel wouldn't work at all on this machine (it oopsed before even mounting the root) and no matter how frantically I pressed the arrow keys during boot I could never get into the GRUB menu and stop it from booting into F12 anaconda. Also, it had no CD drive and LiveUSB boot failed too. Luckily I had another harddrive laying around which had grub on it, so I could install and boot from that instead and return to F10. (The real fix turned out to be to upgrade the BIOS.) Long story short: There are situations where a grub menu is vital, like until you've successfully booted a new kernel. /Alexander -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 09:58:27AM +0200, Alexander Boström wrote: Long story short: There are situations where a grub menu is vital, like until you've successfully booted a new kernel. of course, and I do not think it is so hard to think of a sensible behaviour. After each (semi)automatic change to grub/kernel conf as well as for the very first boot there should be a timeout as well as visible menu. Once the kernel did boot with default command line etc it would be safe to set the timeout to a small value - after asking the user. More elaborate solution, there could be two config values - quicktimeout and safetimout. After kernel and config changes timeout would be changed to safetimout and once the kernel booted safely it could be reset to quicktimeout automatically. Richard -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 11:01 +0200, Richard Zidlicky wrote: On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 09:58:27AM +0200, Alexander Boström wrote: Long story short: There are situations where a grub menu is vital, like until you've successfully booted a new kernel. of course, and I do not think it is so hard to think of a sensible behaviour. After each (semi)automatic change to grub/kernel conf as well as for the very first boot there should be a timeout as well as visible menu. Once the kernel did boot with default command line etc it would be safe to set the timeout to a small value - after asking the user. More elaborate solution, there could be two config values - quicktimeout and safetimout. After kernel and config changes timeout would be changed to safetimout and once the kernel booted safely it could be reset to quicktimeout automatically. Richard Another options will be to test a successful boot flag. (E.g. a touch file in /boot/). If the file doesn't exists (Post installation, new kernel, failed boot/shutdown) grub should switch to a predefined timeout, giving the user time to react. The main issue here, is grub changes. Such a feature will require changes to grub (code), kernel (post install script) and init functions. While the last two are less problematic (bash scripts), given the fact that development of grub is slowly shifting to grub2, I doubt that the Fedora grub maintainers will be willing to spend time on such a feature when grub is be phased out. (Or is it?) - Gilboa -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 12:19 +0300, Gilboa Davara wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 11:01 +0200, Richard Zidlicky wrote: On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 09:58:27AM +0200, Alexander Boström wrote: Long story short: There are situations where a grub menu is vital, like until you've successfully booted a new kernel. of course, and I do not think it is so hard to think of a sensible behaviour. After each (semi)automatic change to grub/kernel conf as well as for the very first boot there should be a timeout as well as visible menu. Once the kernel did boot with default command line etc it would be safe to set the timeout to a small value - after asking the user. More elaborate solution, there could be two config values - quicktimeout and safetimout. After kernel and config changes timeout would be changed to safetimout and once the kernel booted safely it could be reset to quicktimeout automatically. Richard Another options will be to test a successful boot flag. (E.g. a touch file in /boot/). If the file doesn't exists (Post installation, new kernel, failed boot/shutdown) grub should switch to a predefined timeout, giving the user time to react. The main issue here, is grub changes. Such a feature will require changes to grub (code), kernel (post install script) and init functions. While the last two are less problematic (bash scripts), given the fact that development of grub is slowly shifting to grub2, I doubt that the Fedora grub maintainers will be willing to spend time on such a feature when grub is be phased out. (Or is it?) - Gilboa Actually, I do remember grub having a fallback feature. It should solve the failed kernel upgrade problem. However, it will not solve the failed first boot problem. - Gilboa -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 11:01 +0200, Richard Zidlicky wrote: of course, and I do not think it is so hard to think of a sensible behaviour. After each (semi)automatic change to grub/kernel conf as well as for the very first boot there should be a timeout as well as visible menu. Once the kernel did boot with default command line etc it would be safe to set the timeout to a small value - after asking the user. More elaborate solution, there could be two config values - quicktimeout and safetimout. After kernel and config changes timeout would be changed to safetimout and once the kernel booted safely it could be reset to quicktimeout automatically. Neat idea. But if a breaking kernel change somehow occurs without triggering the change to the safetimeout, we would not want the user to be completely stuck. I see two ways to address that: - Make quicktimeout nonzero enough that the user has time to react. - When grub attempts booting with quicktimeout, have it change to safetimeout. Then have an initscript that changes back to quicktimeout once booting has succeeded. Grub already has a default boot entry field in the stage2 image that can be written by boot commands for exactly this purpose; see the info docs. The same could be done for the timeout. (This would appear to be a common trick: my Dell Latitude D620's BIOS does the same thing with the power-on self test.) -- Matt -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 05:24:26AM -0400, Matt McCutchen wrote: On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 11:01 +0200, Richard Zidlicky wrote: More elaborate solution, there could be two config values - quicktimeout and safetimout. After kernel and config changes timeout would be changed to safetimout and once the kernel booted safely it could be reset to quicktimeout automatically. Neat idea. But if a breaking kernel change somehow occurs without triggering the change to the safetimeout, we would not want the user to be completely stuck. I see two ways to address that: see only few possibilities how it could break: - hw configuration change - hw failure - sysadmin breakage (circumventing fedora tools) for situations like this a live USB stick is pretty important, grub timeout could help in this situation or not depending on many other factors. - Make quicktimeout nonzero enough that the user has time to react. the idea was that both quicktimeout and safetimout would be configurable, with reasonable predefined values like eg 1 and 6 seconds. Everything else is too much black magic for my taste:) Richard -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
openSUSE's Grub has defaulted to 8 seconds as long as openSUSE has existed, same as SuSE before it as far back as I ever used it. The 8 is in a select list in the installer's Grub configuration section, so it's easy to change prior to first boot. I always change it to 12-15, depending on how many stanzas are proposed. 3 seconds doesn't give me time to reach for the keyboard, much less both comprehend to what I see and react. This Grub timeout situation is much like desktop font sizes. If fonts are too big/timeout is too long, it's much easier to make smaller/set shorter than to make bigger/set longer if fonts are too big/timeout too short. IOW, if it cannot be perfect (which it cannot), better too long than too short. -- The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
That's not entirely true. I have read many posts where hitting escape had no effect on stopping boot. I, myself have one motherboard that functions (or doesn't function) in the same way. -Original Message- From: Genes MailLists li...@sapience.com To: Development discussions related to Fedora devel@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Sat, May 15, 2010 10:06 am Subject: Re: Increase grub timeout On 05/15/2010 09:48 AM, Felix Miata wrote: rior to first boot. I always change it to 12-15, depending on how many stanzas are proposed. 3 seconds doesn't give me time to reach for the You dont really need to 'react' and make a decision other than to touch the kbd .. once you've touched the kbd .. you can take as long as you want choosing the grub entry/editing etc ... -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Increase grub timeout
Hi I'm reaching my one year anniversary using fedora, so I guess it's time to stop lurking and start writing, so here goes. Back in November I added my two cents to the bugzilla report titled Increase grub timeout. Today I got a notification the it has been set as WontFix. The reason by Chris Lumen in his last paragraph states: I'm closing as WONTFIX only on that basis. Don't take it as an offence or that we'll never change this behavior. I'm just not willing to fix it until there's distribution buy-in. Thanks. OK, no offense taken, and, I understand that for marketing, saving a few seconds off of boot-up time is an immense selling point, especially when all the distros stand up next to one another and try to write their boot up times into the snow. Reading the forums and the mailing lists, I don't think I've come across one post that is positive for keeping the timeout at zero, yet, there is a wall to be hurdled called distribution buy-in. After close to a year using fedora, I know that the first thing I have to do is change the timeout to a 3 and comment out hiddenmenu. But as a new user, it took a while for me to figure out what was going on. I feel for the new user who has a video card that is not immediately recognized and winds up with a black screen after the boot. I have had this happen to me personally doing an install, and, there have been some installs where hitting esc would not stop the boot. I've had to ssh into one machine to change the timeout, just so I could add vesa to the kernel line during boot. As someone who spends his time helping Linux users on forums, it would really help a lot to remove this obstacle. It doesn't make sense to lock a new user out of the grub screen. Thanks for Listening Tom Wroblewski GoinEasy9 -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Fri, 2010-05-14 at 15:31 -0400, goinea...@aol.com wrote: Hi I'm reaching my one year anniversary using fedora, so I guess it's time to stop lurking and start writing, so here goes. Back in November I added my two cents to the bugzilla report titled Increase grub timeout. Today I got a notification the it has been set as WontFix. The reason by Chris Lumen in his last paragraph states: I'm closing as WONTFIX only on that basis. Don't take it as an offence or that we'll never change this behavior. I'm just not willing to fix it until there's distribution buy-in. Thanks. The bug # he's discussing is below.. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=541315 OK, no offense taken, and, I understand that for marketing, saving a few seconds off of boot-up time is an immense selling point, especially when all the distros stand up next to one another and try to write their boot up times into the snow. Reading the forums and the mailing lists, I don't think I've come across one post that is positive for keeping the timeout at zero, yet, there is a wall to be hurdled called distribution buy-in. After close to a year using fedora, I know that the first thing I have to do is change the timeout to a 3 and comment out hiddenmenu. But as a new user, it took a while for me to figure out what was going on. I feel for the new user who has a video card that is not immediately recognized and winds up with a black screen after the boot. I have had this happen to me personally doing an install, and, there have been some installs where hitting esc would not stop the boot. I've had to ssh into one machine to change the timeout, just so I could add vesa to the kernel line during boot. As someone who spends his time helping Linux users on forums, it would really help a lot to remove this obstacle. It doesn't make sense to lock a new user out of the grub screen. Not sure I know what the results are of whom discussed this or who agreed or disagreed as to keep it same or not. But I am the one who opened the bug in the first place. -- Mike Chambers Madisonville, KY Best lil town on Earth! -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
So what's the actual bug? I've read through the tracker list and I still can;t for the life of me detect an actual bug, but rather an annoyance for a select few. However, I do agree that there should be a delay increase for GRUB timeout. More so like that of Debian, Ubuntu etc. -- Chris Jones Photographic Imaging Professional and Graphic Designer ABN: 98 317 740 240 Photo Resolutions - Photo Printing, Editing and Restorations Web: http://photoresolutions.freehostia.com Email: chrisjo...@comcen.com.au -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: Increase grub timeout
On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 10:33 +1000, Chris Jones wrote: So what's the actual bug? I've read through the tracker list and I still can;t for the life of me detect an actual bug, but rather an annoyance for a select few. However, I do agree that there should be a delay increase for GRUB timeout. More so like that of Debian, Ubuntu etc. Was originally filed when discovered there was no timeout during a boot after a test install, before was told it was done on purpose. So therefore thought it was a bug. Now it's an argument as to whether there should be a timeout or not. -- Mike Chambers Madisonville, KY Best lil town on Earth! -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
