Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Quick Search: in
What is happening with grub on Gentoo
View unanswered posts
View posts from last 24 hours

Goto page Previous  1, 2  
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Other Things Gentoo
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
TomWij
Retired Dev
Retired Dev


Joined: 04 Jul 2012
Posts: 1553

PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 7:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, the NVIDIA proprietary driver doesn't really play well with frame buffers, I have learned to not care and not use the frame buffer on that unless I really need to;
if you do need a proper framebuffer I'd suggest you to go for Nouveau if you don't need heavy games, if it works for you and you don't mind running open source.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mv
Watchman
Watchman


Joined: 20 Apr 2005
Posts: 6747

PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 5:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

transsib wrote:
That would be stone-age as grub legacy did this by reading from grub.conf.

No. You would have to pass a parameter like vga=...; maybe in some cases grub legacy appended this parameter automatically on the command line, I do not remember.
Quote:
'Yes, grub menu is nice, just as soon as boot starts it looks like old ms-dos times. This is a step backwards.

It's a feature, not a bug: Just in a parallel thread one could not see anything in graphics mode in the kernel because the kernel had no framebuffer support. With gfxpayload you decide which graphics mode is used before the kernel starts; grub2 does not rely on the kernel doing this but in contrast to legacy grub can do it on its own.[/topic]
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mv
Watchman
Watchman


Joined: 20 Apr 2005
Posts: 6747

PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 5:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TomWij wrote:
Yeah, the NVIDIA proprietary driver

For me, the proprietary driver works nice with everything on all systems. It is nouveau which at udev start draws strange line on the screen and hangs the system if the vga=... parameter is passed (and systemd is used - still no idea why it never hangs with openrc). It is also nouveau in which not even basic dpms works (it shows the screen again after a few seconds). And it is also nouveau which on another machine has a 5% chance of hanging the system on daring actions like opening a window or writing a text in a shell window. In many years nouveau has developed step by step from "completely crashing at kernel start" over "will segfault X on start" and "starts X but hangs when attempting to draw anything" to "still very far from being usable for very basic tasks" while in contrast the feature matrix on their website claimed throughout that support for all of my cards is completely ready and would support the fanciest features (and I am speaking about 3 different card generations on different systems). I guess without getting any support from nouveau, they will never have a chance to fix the most severe bugs - it is just a hopeless task.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
TomWij
Retired Dev
Retired Dev


Joined: 04 Jul 2012
Posts: 1553

PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 9:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nouveau doesn't need the vga parameter (I think, at least I don't use it and the resolution is high enough) so that might be causing some problems,
DPMS works here so it sounds like some activation source is activating that again (or yeah, maybe a bug); as for the rest of the behavior, did you select xorg-x11 for OpenGL?

The rest (segfaults) and dmesg errors can likely be resolved by reporting them, feel free to CC me on them; that is, if you have the need to go Nouveau or want to help it improve.

(It works fine here, including reclocking; but yeah, a lot depends on the card as while you may have a card in a family that is supported,
it may be one of the exceptional cards of that family that works slightly different...)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
EasterParade
l33t
l33t


Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 938

PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 10:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
maybe in some cases grub legacy appended this parameter automatically on the command line, I do not remember.

Obviously.
I do not use nouveau. I never had any issues with the proprietary nvidia driver at any point be it framebuffer on boot console or in X until I migrated to grub2. OpenGL is nvidia - no probs there too. So I do not necessarily need to change the graphics driver.
(card is 460 gtx btw )
Once system has started and X is running again: no issues at all.
Quote:
With gfxpayload you decide which graphics mode is used before the kernel starts;

and when the kernel starts no framebuffer is used unless you set gfxpayload on the command line of grub2 each time you boot?
If that´s not a step into the wrong direction I don´t know what is. I am not saying it´s a bug. I rather believe grub2 is not
ready for use yet.

You see everything works but looking at those extra-large boot text lines makes my eyes hurt. 8O

I´d say I have the gfxpayload=keep in some config files that I can edit but grub2 does not feel responsible for that.
Grub legacy did it just fine. Which makes me believe it´s only a matter of time until grub2 can do it too or else no editing
convinces grub2 to hand resolution over to the kernel unless specified on the command line.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mv
Watchman
Watchman


Joined: 20 Apr 2005
Posts: 6747

PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 4:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

TomWij wrote:
Nouveau doesn't need the vga parameter (I think, at least I don't use it and the resolution is high enough) so that might be causing some problems,

Without vga parameter there is only the basic DOS resolution. The hang is whenever the resolution was switched before, not the particular way how this has happened - but as I said, stramgely the hang occurs only with systemd in the very first phase when udev is initialized; which is very strange since I doubt that this is so much different from the first initialization of udev in openrc. But it is completely reproducible.
Quote:
DPMS works here so it sounds like some activation source is activating that again

Since it works reproducable with nvidia always and with nouveau never, I am sure that there is no source which is not in the nouveau drivers itself.
Quote:
as for the rest of the behavior, did you select xorg-x11 for OpenGL?

I tried dozens of combinations, of course (of eselect opengl/opencl/xvmc, xorg.conf.d with various options and drivers, and kernel modules). It never had any effect, except for one machine where running nvidia with kernel and nouveau opengl works rather well - up to the point where really opengl would be needed (googleearth or tuxracer) which is then slow as hell (the first image of googleearth takes about 5 minutes); unfortunately, there is no speed gain when using also regularly nouveau for kernel and X except that then there is in addition the dpms problem.
Quote:
The rest (segfaults) and dmesg errors can likely be resolved by reporting them

The hangs on the other machine are nothing which can be reported - the machine just hangs completely at random graphical actions, usually when just half-drawing a character or other element - without logs. My third machine with nvidia card is not in use anymore and I do not remember details from it.
Quote:
while you may have a card in a family that is supported, it may be one of the exceptional cards of that family that works slightly different...)

Three exceptional cards out of three in different generations sounds like extraordinary bad luck. Of course, it is statistically possible.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
pa4wdh
l33t
l33t


Joined: 16 Dec 2005
Posts: 806

PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 7:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry for my late response.

mv wrote:
pa4wdh wrote:
I have seen an interactive mode, but that's only possible after all components are loaded.

IMHO "interactive" and "rescue" mode are the same; in legacy grub there is not much loading of components. If your stage1.5 (or analogon for grub2) fails e.g. because of harddisk problems or only partially installed grub you are lost in legacy grub as well as in grub2.

In my case (2 hardrives in software raid) there was a big difference. Of course grub2 was configured to load the modules from the raid array but that failed. The rescue console allowed me to load the modules from an other location (the partition of the harddrive, ignoring software raid metadata) and eventually boot the system. A similar situation in grub-legacy would require external media to boot from to correct the problems.
_________________
The gentoo way of bringing peace to the world:
USE="-war" emerge --newuse @world

My shared code repository: https://code.pa4wdh.nl.eu.org
Music, Free as in Freedom: https://www.jamendo.com
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mv
Watchman
Watchman


Joined: 20 Apr 2005
Posts: 6747

PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 8:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

pa4wdh wrote:
A similar situation in grub-legacy would require external media

IMHO, it makes no sense to compare grub-legacy and grub2 in this respect concerning the rescue/interactive mode, since grub-legacy does not need modules. Philosophing whether grub2's rescue mode is "different" from legacy grub's interactive mode, only because the former can save you from a situation you cannot get into in legacy grub, is IMHO a pointless discussion which leads to nowhere.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NeddySeagoon
Administrator
Administrator


Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 54096
Location: 56N 3W

PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 9:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll stir the pot a little ...

grub2 was too late. Its a solution to a problem that no longer exists, on PCs anyway.

Legacy grub does a good job on pre EFI harware.
The kernel is an EFI program, so on EFI systems, no bootloader is required.

It may simplify booting from raid/LVM etc but at the price of hiding the complexity from the user.
Thats the same user who is left with the pieces when it breaks and without the understanding to fix it.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
wuzzerd
Guru
Guru


Joined: 05 Jan 2005
Posts: 466
Location: New Mexico

PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 10:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
I'll stir the pot a little ...


Quite awhile ago, I was installing an Ubuntu partition and somehow let them install grub. It was grub2. It did not see my gentoo partitions. I tried to fix menu.lst, to no avail. Being forced to learn a new version just to get my computer running seemed a bit excessive. I hate being buried in xml and other illegible stuff. :D I finally pulled out a rescue cd and put grub1 back on.

My chief objection is the name: Grand Unified Boot Loader. Why is this necessary when most of us have only one or two operating systems on their machine. Why make it 1000x more complex than the boot sector on a dos floppy?

tldr: I can write a grub menu.lst in my sleep.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
EasterParade
l33t
l33t


Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 938

PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
It may simplify booting from raid/LVM etc but at the price of hiding the complexity from the user.
Thats the same user who is left with the pieces when it breaks and without the understanding to fix it.

That´s the voice I highly respect. The decision to migrate to grub2 and drop grub altogether must have been made unanimously?

I do not have RAID or LVM; my set-up is simple and grub2 detected it just fine, yet I repeat myself by saying
grub2 seems to be intransparent. Apart from the framebuffer annoyance could it break such a simple configuration too?

All parameters are given, resolution and vga but i still get the super-large console font. I miss the fast overlook of
all boot messages and yea causes blurry eyes.

Quote:
Quite awhile ago, I was installing an Ubuntu partition and somehow let them install grub. It was grub2.

That´s too bad. I´ve got a old laptop with Windows Vista installed. I´ve added Ubuntu. A while ago it updated to grub2 but
all seemed to be fine there. I didn´t touch anything for that to work.
I should take a look at the boot console and the config to see whether grub2 gets the framebuffer right.
May be I can use that information for my system.

If all fails I still have grub legacy on my system and migrate back to it.

:(
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mv
Watchman
Watchman


Joined: 20 Apr 2005
Posts: 6747

PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
ILegacy grub does a good job on pre EFI harware.

Yes, but grub2's job is better (script possibilities in grub.cfg, support for lvm, etc).
Quote:
The kernel is an EFI program, so on EFI systems, no bootloader is required.

Only if you want a fixed kernel with a fixed command line. All of the other tasks (change parts of the command line like init system or (not)passing "noresume" by simply clicking in a menu, select a different ramdisk if required) are not possible (or at least cumbersome, depending on your system).
Quote:
It may simplify booting from raid/LVM etc.

s/simplify/make it possible without a dedicated separate boot partition/ (at least on non-EFI systems, maybe on EFI systems there are also possibilities).
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Other Things Gentoo All times are GMT
Goto page Previous  1, 2
Page 2 of 2

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum