Increase grub timeout

[Matthew Garrett]

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 | mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org