With sys-boot/grub-0.97-r3 the plain text version (when splashimage is not used) has completely unreadable text, causing the kernel boot and system boot (when not using framebuffer of any sorts) text to be completely unreadable too until init launches consolefont init script, which resets it to be good. Some lower revisions are fine, I suspect the debian patchset introduced in -r3 to cause this. I have experienced this problem on at least three or four different machines, until I set a splashimage, which makes it be graphical and not mess up the text mode.
it's been like this for ages ... ive hit this bug back in like 2003 ;) does your grub.conf have splashimage defined ?
Whoops, must have missed the e-mail. Downgrading to -r2 fixed the problem back then. Must be the debian patches added in -r3 or something similar. Judging on the fact that I don't have this problem on machines with splashimage, I'd say yes on the question. Text mode is completely fubarred since -r3 though on two different machines I have fresh installed gentoo with that grub version at start
I've encountered this problem as well for the last couple of days. I guess it started after my last grub update (from 0.97-r5 to 0.97-r6). I use splashimage, just like in the install docs: splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz The file has disappeared: $ ls /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz ls: cannot access /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz: No such file or directory Maybe the file has moved? I found a file called "/usr/share/grub/splash.xpm.gz".
hyperquantum: look at your full log output from the grub install, and see if it told you that it was copying from /usr/share/grub to /boot/grub. It should have copied stuff, or, depending on when you updated, warned you that DONT_MOUNT_BOOT was in effect, and that you needed to run "emerge --config grub" manually.
Had the same problem here, and kinda overlooked that message (if i even got it), twice. Working as intended now.
How hard would it be to make grub check to see that the splash file exists, and if it does not, generate an error message and load without a splash screen and without garbling the text? This seems like the correct behavior.
My log from the grub upgrade: * Your boot partition was detected as being mounted as /boot. * Files will be installed there for grub to function correctly. (...) * Copying files from /lib/grub, /usr/lib/grub and /usr/share/grub to //boot/grub * Grub has been installed to //boot successfully. And I've run grub-install afterwards.
I just ran "emerge --config grub" and discovered something: (...) * Copying files from /lib/grub, /usr/lib/grub and /usr/share/grub to /boot/grub /var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/grub-0.97-r6/temp/environment: line 2924: 26037 Done egrep -v '^[[:space:]]*(#|$|default|fallback|initrd|password|splashimage|timeout|title)' "${grub_config}" 26038 Segmentation fault | /sbin/grub --batch --device-map="${dir}"/device.map > /dev/null * Grub has been installed to /boot successfully. That could explain the missing splashimage. Now why the segfault?
Despite the segfault, the splashimage file reappeared, and the text is no longer garbled on boot.
No segfault here, but the splash file did no reappear after "emerge --config grub", I had to copy manually. Really annoying :/
I too was bitten by this bug during the last year (2008) and only was able to track it to the missing splash image a couple of days ago, independently of this BUG (I only booted 3 or 4 times since it happened). I thought I'd screwed up my MBR or some other fundamental thing. I never saw any warnings from Grub or anything, so this was a total grope in the dark. For that reason I really think the Grub-maintainers should get their act together and implement a _clean_ fallback to text-only mode if the splash image can't be found.
1. Anybody with this bug, copy the splashimage back to your /boot. 2. Please test the linked patch for the case that the image is not present but is still referenced in grub.conf.
Please test the patch!
No updates in nearly a year, so I assume it works.
Now committed and published as new patchset: grub-0.97-patches-1.10.tar.bz2 Ebuild sys-boot/grub-0.97-r10 committed.
