Converting Ubuntu CDs to GRUB

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@ubuntu.com>]

I would like to convert Ubuntu CDs to boot using GRUB for Ubuntu 10.10.

This is a bit ambitious.  We're currently using ISOLINUX with SuSE's
gfxboot extensions, and extensive theming to offer various custom menus.
A number of the facilities we depend on there aren't yet present in
gfxmenu, and while I can probably get away without all of them I don't
think I'll be able to strip it all the way down to the point of a single
boot menu.

Nevertheless, I think this is worth pursuing for various reasons: we're
probably going to need to use GRUB to support EFI-based machines anyway;
maintaining gfxboot-theme-ubuntu is really no fun at all; and I'd like
to see GRUB get to the point where it can handle these requirements
easily.  Judging from the images on the front page of
http://grub.gibibit.com/, I gather that this was at least considered as
a goal for gfxmenu!

I've written up a brief description of our needs here:

  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/Specs/MaverickCDBoot

I think that the extensions we'd need in gfxmenu amount to:

  * Supplementary menu support, with menus bound to keys
   * Either scrolling menus or grid menus, preferably grid
  * The ability to bind functions to menus to process selections
  * Checkbox widgets

Needless to say I'm willing to take on the bulk of the work here, but
I'm very new to gfxmenu and I would greatly appreciate review from those
who've spent more time thinking about it and hacking on it.  In
particular, I'd appreciate thoughts on how this kind of thing might best
be represented in extensions to the theme format.

Thanks,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@ubuntu.com]