Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Is grub2 stable and who uses it?

[Canek Peláez Valdés]

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 1:11 PM, Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Oct 2011 08:08:16 -0700
> Canek Peláez Valdés <caneko@×××××.com> wrote:
>
>> > At first glace, grub2 looks like a minature Unix installation whose
>> > purpose is to boot a bigger Unix installation.  It's got it's own
>> > init system and it's own set of init scripts.
>>
>> That it's not true. It connects to whatever init system do you have
>> (OpenRC, SysV, systemd, Upstart), and it has scripts to *generate* the
>> config file.
>>
>> The thing is that GRUB2 needs to understand several filesystems to
>> grab the kernel image from. It also wants to be able to use a more
>> interesting resolution than 640x480. This means that it has to
>> reimplement all the code for any filesystem, and all the code for
>> video handling.
>
> Personally, I can't agree with this stance from the grub2 devs.
>
> It's a bootloader. It is visible for 3 seconds at boot time.

Some of us care about those 3 seconds, and the flickering of the
screen when going from bootloader to init splash to X. If you don't
care about those 3 seconds or the flickering, then simply don't use
grub2: keep using grub-legacy or lilo.

> For driving the screen it should just use whatever facilities the
> firmware one layer below it provides.

That's your opinion, and a respectable one. I agree not everybody will
(nor should) care about a pretty boot menu. However, many of us do.

I'm pretty sure when grub2 hits the 2.0 version it will be optional at
./configure time wether to use or not pretty graphics and a lot of
filesystems, or only VGA and ext2, and everything in between.

Regards.
-- 
Canek Peláez Valdés
Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México