too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen

too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen

[jidanni]

The top two lines of
grub> help
output will roll off the standard sized console. Please remove some
commands so there aren't so many that they roll off the screen.

Actually just please use more columns on some of the help lines. (Yes,
TAB reveals the missing commands.)

P.S., What if I forget my password and I cannot login to my machine?
The best I can do is
grub> cat (hd0,1)/etc/passwd
How can I edit it to zero out the :x: field?
Could you supply ed(1) in the commands perhaps?

[This message was sent to the wrong list due to the wrong address on
man pages. Now reposting to grub-devel.]

Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen

[Andy Goth]

jidanni@jidanni.org wrote:
> The top two lines of
> grub> help
> output will roll off the standard sized console. Please remove some
> commands so there aren't so many that they roll off the screen.

You should be able to remove testing commands (like "hello" and "play") from the build.  At the moment I don't have the ability to research how.

I recently found a related problem that I'll post more information on after doing some research.  It's the opposite issue: scrolling doesn't always happen when I want it to.
 
> P.S., What if I forget my password and I cannot login to my machine?

Presuming Linux, you can add "init=/bin/sh" to the kernel command line.  This will give you a shell without asking for a password.  From this shell you can edit your password file.

I sometimes use this trick to give myself an account. :^)  Seriously, if you don't password-protect your GRUB or LILO prompt (or anything else that edits the kernel command line), your system is open to anyone who has access to the keyboard.  Then again, unless you take extraordinary measures, your system is open to anyone with a screwdriver and physical access to the machine.

Warning 1: If support for your keyboard isn't compiled into the kernel, you won't be able to type, since the init scripts (which would load modules and do other configuration) will be bypassed.  I suggest using a PS/2 keyboard in this case.

Warning 2: You won't have job control, so Ctrl-C and so on won't work.  Issue a command that takes a long time to complete, and you will have to wait.  Issue a command that never completes, and you will have to reboot.  I suggest running screen so as to give yourself a workaround.

Warning 3: The root filesystem might be mounted read-only.  Test this by using touch to create a file, then use ls to see if the file was created.  If not, type "mount" to get a listing of filesystems, then remount / with the device name taken from mount's output and the -oremount,rw option.  Or add "rw" to the kernel command line, removing "ro" if it is present.

Warning 4: Initrd scripts might change everything.

> Could you supply ed(1) in the commands perhaps?

I could be wrong, but I don't think grub was, is, or ever will be meant to modify filesystems.  Oh wait, I think it can be configured to remember the selected menu item as a new default, but I don't know how that's implemented.

-- 
Andy Goth | http://andy.junkdrome.org/
unununium@{aircanopy.net,openverse.com}

Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen

[Robert Millan]

On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 03:10:22AM +0800, jidanni@jidanni.org wrote:
> The top two lines of
> grub> help
> output will roll off the standard sized console. Please remove some
> commands so there aren't so many that they roll off the screen.

'set pager=1' solves this.  Btw, should we make it the default?

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen

[Jordi Mallach]

On Sat, Nov 01, 2008 at 01:46:10PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
> > output will roll off the standard sized console. Please remove some
> > commands so there aren't so many that they roll off the screen.
> 'set pager=1' solves this.  Btw, should we make it the default?

totally, this is very annoying by default. :)

-- 
Jordi Mallach Pérez  --  Debian developer     http://www.debian.org/
jordi@sindominio.net     jordi@debian.org     http://www.sindominio.net/
GnuPG public key information available at http://oskuro.net/

pager=1 as default? (Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen)

[Robert Millan]

On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 06:07:30PM +0100, Jordi Mallach wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 01, 2008 at 01:46:10PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
> > > output will roll off the standard sized console. Please remove some
> > > commands so there aren't so many that they roll off the screen.
> > 'set pager=1' solves this.  Btw, should we make it the default?
> 
> totally, this is very annoying by default. :)

Since this was intentional, I'd like to know what others (specially the
maintainers) think about this before proposing that it is changed...

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: pager=1 as default? (Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen)

[peter cros]

Not yet, its not perfect just yet.

For me on an apple efi macbook, pager=1 works very nicely on grub-efi
(I did not know about it before), and can be unset, and it is great.

But for grub ieee1275 on an apple ibookG4, it is useful, but has some
erratic behaviour (garbling screen) and does not turn off with 'unset
pager', so you don't want to be stuck with it.

I don't know about grub-pc.


On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 5:41 AM, Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> wrote:
> Since this was intentional, I'd like to know what others (specially the
> maintainers) think about this before proposing that it is changed...
>
> --
> Robert Millan
>
>  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
>  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
>  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>

peter cros

Re: pager=1 as default? (Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen)

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

On Sunday 02 November 2008 19:41:42 Robert Millan wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 06:07:30PM +0100, Jordi Mallach wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 01, 2008 at 01:46:10PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
> > > > output will roll off the standard sized console. Please remove some
> > > > commands so there aren't so many that they roll off the screen.
> > >
> > > 'set pager=1' solves this.  Btw, should we make it the default?
> >
> > totally, this is very annoying by default. :)
>
> Since this was intentional, I'd like to know what others (specially the
> maintainers) think about this before proposing that it is changed...

The pager must not be enabled by default. This was decided in GRUB Legacy (by 
me), and I believe that this decision is still right.

The reason is that GRUB must not require any human intervention by default. 
Otherwise, if a command emits a lot of text for some reason, you have no 
control with a remote system. In reality, interactive usages of a boot loader 
are quite rare. So the default should be optimized for batch operations.

If you don't like this default, you only have to write "set pager=1" in 
grub.cfg.

Regards,
Okuji

Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen

[Matt Sturgeon]

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y don't we just ad a scroll bar, like on the menu?

ie. you use the up/down keys to hilite a line, when you hilite the prompt
you can enter commands, the scrollbar tells you ware you are on the page.

This is another instance ware mouse support would be useful: you could use
the scrollbar directly (by clicking on it), and you could also have a close
button on the top of the terminal to return you to the menu without having
to type exit. sorry the close button is abit off topic.

2008/11/2 Jordi Mallach <jordi@gnu.org>

> On Sat, Nov 01, 2008 at 01:46:10PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
> > > output will roll off the standard sized console. Please remove some
> > > commands so there aren't so many that they roll off the screen.
> > 'set pager=1' solves this.  Btw, should we make it the default?
>
> totally, this is very annoying by default. :)
>
> --
> Jordi Mallach Pérez  --  Debian developer     http://www.debian.org/
> jordi@sindominio.net     jordi@debian.org     http://www.sindominio.net/
> GnuPG public key information available at http://oskuro.net/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>

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Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen

[Robert Millan]

On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 09:01:28AM +0000, Matt Sturgeon wrote:
> y don't we just ad a scroll bar, like on the menu?

This would require buffering first, which we don't have (but it could be a
nice feature.  anyone wants to hack it?).

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."

Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen

[jidanni]

MS> This is another instance ware mouse support would be useful: you
MS> could use the scrollbar directly (by clicking on it),

Scrollbar... mouse... next thing you know you'll be implementing
javascript. One or two are OK, but if this trend continues don't blame
me if one day you can't properly boot your M-67 roll-by-wire armored
tank in time to defeat the Commies at the battle of Asparagus Gap.

Re: too many commands, "help" output rolls of screen

[Robert Millan]

On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 04:59:32AM +0800, jidanni@jidanni.org wrote:
> MS> This is another instance ware mouse support would be useful: you
> MS> could use the scrollbar directly (by clicking on it),
> 
> Scrollbar... mouse... next thing you know you'll be implementing
> javascript. One or two are OK, but if this trend continues don't blame
> me if one day you can't properly boot your M-67 roll-by-wire armored
> tank in time to defeat the Commies at the battle of Asparagus Gap.

The ultimate goal is being able to run Emacs, of course.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."