Improving the Fedora boot experience

[Michael Cronenworth]

On 03/11/2013 02:41 PM, Björn Persson wrote:
> Yes, why not display the Grub menu?

Because it's the year 2013. Not 1999.

> Whether any text is displayed or not, there still needs to be a long
> enough pause that the user has time to press a key. Not displaying any
> text at all would make it harder to understand that the time to press
> that key is now. Many people won't even understand that they have an
> opportunity to press a key.

Does any other computing device you own prompt you for a boot menu? Your
mobile phone? Your TV (which likely has embedded Linux)? Your car?
Windows? OS X?

Why is that? Could it be because a boot menu is not necessary for normal
operation? A normal user doesn't need to wonder "Hey what kernel do I
need to boot today?" every time their system boots.

If you are a developing developer and need to boot a different kernel or
change kernel parameters then you know how to get into the boot menu --
on-screen prompts or no on-screen prompts.

There is a time when developers need to distance themselves from
user-interfaces and realize they are not the only user of the
user-interface. This is one of those times.