No grub2 menu display; can't boot F17

[David A. De Graaf]

On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 11:45:06PM +0200, Heinz Diehl wrote:
> On 03.07.2012, David A. De Graaf wrote: 
> 
> > There are so many major faults with grub2 it's hard to see where to
> > begin.  The most egregious are these:
> [....]
> 
> Do you have any proof for your statements?

Yes, as I think I described in some detail, when the machine boots
no grub2 menu is displayed.  Instead, the monitor shows an error
message box saying "Input not supported".  Then after about 30 sec
this disappears and the machine boots.  No choice is offered or is
available.  As it happens, the menuentry that is used is wrongly
constructed - it combines an old F16 kernel with a new root partition.
The result is a system that doesn't work.

> 
> I installed F17 on 12 different machines since it's release, and
> encountered not a single problem with grub2. It would be helpful if
> you could explain in detail what the problem actually is you'd like to
> get help with.

As I also mentioned, this problem occurs on only one of four machines
on which I've installed F17.  The other three work properly.
There is no difference in the way I installed F17, that I'm aware of.

The problem I need a solution for is to cause grub2 to display a
proper menu, on this machine.

A secondary goal is to have grub2 redesigned to produce sensible
menuentries instead of the current collection of 20 entries, only 4 of
which can possibly work.


In addition to these showstoppers, other inadequacies of grub2 include
- the inability to edit the boot parameters for the selected menuitem.
Try, for example, to delete rhgb and replace it with noselinux.
- I consider it unacceptably bad design to need to run grub2-mkconfig.
This shows blatant disregard for the user.  It wasn't necessary with
grub; requiring it in grub2 is a giant step backward.
- The syntax of grub.cfg is grotesquely bad, overly complex and
illogical.

-- 
        David A. De Graaf    DATIX, Inc.    Hendersonville, NC
        dad at datix.us         www.datix.us


A fine is a tax for doing wrong.  A tax is a fine for doing well.