perceived bug: no serial/vga simuldisplay

perceived bug: no serial/vga simuldisplay

[Joey Korkames]

When migrating my Grub1 pxegrub setup to grub2 for testing, some of the new 
quirks in the serial system have bothered me...

Unlike Grub Legacy, where I can specifiy 
the serial console, and have the menu simul-displayed on both vga and serial 
(if port actually exists); Grub2 can't simul-display.

As a workaround, I have it display a timeout on vga and display 
the menu on serial if no vga input was received. Serial access is 
more important in my environment, hence why it has primacy.

 This stinks for the occasional vga user whose machine doesn't even 
have a serial port (tested on Laptop hardware and with Xen HVM). Grub2 is 
just unrecoverrably hung on a phantom port and the box must be 
physically rebooted (the default choice from the now-invisible menu does NOT 
auto-boot!).

Grub Legacy:
serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal --timeout=10 serial console

Grub2: 
terminal console
#you have to light the console first before going to serial!

echo -n "Press ESC to bypass serial console and enter the menu via VGA console... "
if sleep --verbose --interruptible 3 ; then
  set grubconsole=serial
# serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
  serial
#I assume that this parameter autodetection is what this thread was actually about...
  terminal serial
else                                                                                                                                                 
  set grubconsole=vga                                                                                                                                  
fi


Best regards to the Grub2 crew,
Joey

Re: perceived bug: no serial/vga simuldisplay

[Colin D Bennett]

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On Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:01:30 -0700
Joey Korkames <joey+lists@kidfixit.com> wrote:

> When migrating my Grub1 pxegrub setup to grub2 for testing, some of
> the new quirks in the serial system have bothered me...
> 
> Unlike Grub Legacy, where I can specifiy 
> the serial console, and have the menu simul-displayed on both vga and
> serial (if port actually exists); Grub2 can't simul-display.

I wonder if Robert Millan's 'Terminal split' patch will allow this.  He
plans, I think, to support having both AT keyboard + USB keyboard
input, so I think that supporting serial in/out and keyboard/VGA in/out
should be a similar situation.

I'll let Robert chime in on this.

Regards,
Colin

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Re: perceived bug: no serial/vga simuldisplay

[Robert Millan]

On Fri, Nov 07, 2008 at 10:26:37AM -0800, Colin D Bennett wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:01:30 -0700
> Joey Korkames <joey+lists@kidfixit.com> wrote:
> 
> > When migrating my Grub1 pxegrub setup to grub2 for testing, some of
> > the new quirks in the serial system have bothered me...
> > 
> > Unlike Grub Legacy, where I can specifiy 
> > the serial console, and have the menu simul-displayed on both vga and
> > serial (if port actually exists); Grub2 can't simul-display.
> 
> I wonder if Robert Millan's 'Terminal split' patch will allow this.  He
> plans, I think, to support having both AT keyboard + USB keyboard
> input, so I think that supporting serial in/out and keyboard/VGA in/out
> should be a similar situation.
> 
> I'll let Robert chime in on this.

My patch (btw I just committed it) doesn't allow this per se, but it's a step
in that direction.

Multiple terminals are being discussed in that thread as well.

-- 
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."