All, I have some concerns about the 2008.0 beta cd not being accessible to a blind user. I use x86, but what I'm about to say doesn't only apply to that architecture. I believe amd64 uses grub also, so this should be addressed there. I just downloaded, burned and attempted to boot the x86 cd. However, i was completely unable to tell when the grub menu was up, so I was unable to interact with it. I use grub on my installed system, and the way I handle it is to put a bell character (^g) in one of the title lines in grub.conf. Something like this would be extremely helpful, so that a blind person doesn't have to guess when the boot menu is up. The other concern I have is about how to add kcl options in grub. I know that with isolinux, I would do something like this: [bootprompt]: gentoo dosshd password=xxxx But I don't know the equivalent in grub. It would be good if the readme had detailed instructions regarding how to do this.
In order to edit the grub commandline, you can: * hit E to edit the menu item * hit E to edit the kernel line of that menu item * hit END to go the end of the kernel commandline * type 'dosshd password=xxxx' * hit enter * hit B Yes, this is considerably more "involved" than it would be with isolinux. However, grub is a lot more advanced than isolinux is. How do other distros handle these type of issues on their LiveCDs?
(In reply to comment #1) > > How do other distros handle these type of issues on their LiveCDs? > mostly they have an additional input-field e.g. "Custom boot options:" which then will be appended to the kernel line automatically on boot
Which bootloader implements this?
(In reply to comment #3) > Which bootloader implements this? > i saw something like that on LinuxMint using GRUB, see screenshot: http://linuxmint.com/img/screenshots/celena/800/grub.png
Someone just told me that another thing we can do is hit escape at the menu, which will drop to a boot style prompt. From there, they say it is possible to use one of the labels and pass any extra arguments. So, for example, if I heard a beep when the menu came up, I could hit esc then type the same type of command I could type in isolinux: gentoo dosshd password=something Can someone comment regarding whether this works or not?
(In reply to comment #4) > i saw something like that on LinuxMint using GRUB, see screenshot: > http://linuxmint.com/img/screenshots/celena/800/grub.png Any idea how they do this?
(In reply to comment #5) > Can someone comment regarding whether this works or not? Hitting ESC only seems to cancel the timeout in grub on our CDs
I think you would hit "c" instead of ESC.
I tried that. The grub commandline doesn't let you use the labels from the menu. You can't just 'gentoo dosshd'
(In reply to comment #6) > > Any idea how they do this? > I'm in touch with the main dev there, I'll ask him
What is the latest on this, in particular in relation to comment #10? Thanks much, William
All, I just attempted to test the recently released 2008.0 beta 2 and found that the same issues I mentioned in comment #0 for this bug still apply. I am unable to tell when I get to the boot prompt, so I am unable to add the dosshd and password= options to the kcl so that I can get sshd started. Can someone please look into this before 2008.0 is actually released? Thanks, William
I'm planning on looking into this, but it's very likely that we're switching back to isolinux for this release, anyway. There's been too many issues with grub to consider it usable for a release.
Ok, that's cool. As far as I know, it should be possible to get a beep with isolinux also, just by putting a ^g somewhere in the message that displays before the boot prompt. Thanks, William
