Re: Tiny Console Fonts - Almost Fixed
On Thu, Aug 05, 2010 at 04:07:26PM -0400, Thomas H. George wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 05, 2010 at 02:49:48PM -0400, Tom H wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:49 PM, Thomas H. George <lists@tomgeorge.info> wrote:
> > >
> > > I don't understand grub's menu.lst. It begins with several entries
> > > and the beginning of the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST and within this the
> > > start of the default options list. Within this list is
> > >
> > > #kopt=root=UUID=xxxx where xxxx is the UUID of the root partition which
> > > was previously known as /dev/sdb1
> > >
> > > The following entry is
> > > groot=(hd0,0)
> > >
> > > though at some point in the original setup I specified writing the MBR
> > > to /dev/sda and to /dev/sdb. I had used lilo to write a different MBR
> > > to /dev/hda. Subsequently grub failed to boot the system because it
> > > could not find the root partition but lilo could still boot the system
> > > and running update-grub corrected grub's problem.
> > >
> > > After a number of additional default entries the end of the default
> > > options list is reached. Following this is the entry
> > >
> > > title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.30-1-amd64
> > > root (hd0,0)
> > > kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30-1-amd64 root=/dev/sdb1 ro
> > > initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.30-1-amd64
> > >
> > > followed by several more such entries for earlier kernels and then the
> > > END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST. Since the current kernel and two
> > > other recent kernels were not included in the above list I added
> > >
> > > title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.32-5-amd64
> > > root (hd0,0)
> > > kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-amd64 root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet splash
> > > vga=0x311
> > >
> > > to the end of the file, saved the file, ran update-grub and rebooted.
> > > The scripts still change to the tiny font in middle of the reboot.
> > >
> > > Questions: Why are the newer kernels not included in the Automagic
> > > listings? Is there a conflict between root (hd0,0) and root=/dev/sdb1?
> > > Why does the system still switch to tiny fonts during bootup?
> > > initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-amd64
> >
> > "kopt=..." defines the /boot where the automagic kernels are and the
> > options to give the kernel line for these kernels (sdb1, in your case)
> > and "groot=..." defines the /boot where /boot/grub is (that's why it
> > is (hdX,Y) and not (hdX) even though you've written grub's stage 1 to
> > the mbr).
> >
> > Given that you installed grub to sda and sdb, you must have a raid
> > setup so mixing an sdb1 / and an sda1 /boot is weird but the new
> > kernels should be seen by update-grub; "should" is the operative
> > word...
> >
> I do not have a raid setup and /boot is in the root directory on sdb1.
> History: /sdb is a 71G hard drive and all the system subdirectories are
> subdirectories of the root directory. sda is a 300G hard drive added to
> store large collections of music, photo and video files. hda is left
> over from the days - long gone - when I thought I occasionally needed
> run windoz.
>
> When I recently updated grub the installation script specifically
> recommended installing the MBR on each hard drive. Earlier I had lilo
> put an MBR on hda and this proved useful when the grub boot failed as
> the lilo boot still worked. I just tested booting from hda and found
> kernel-2.6.32-5 is now too large but the boot of kernel-2.6.32-3 still
> works and the system came up with 640x480 resolution and large fonts.
> This is not a result of the changes to grub. When I was using
> kernel-2.6.32-3 I had to restore an old copy of xorg.conf otherwise the
> boot would not use the nv driver. When I switched to kernel-2.6.32-5 I
> had to remove the xorg.conf file.
>
>
> > I am curious though. Since you are running testing or unstable, could
> > it be that your bootloader is grub2 and that update-grub is updating
> > grub.cfg rather than menu.lst? That would also explain why "vga=0x311"
> > was ineffective.
> >
> You have pinpointed the problem. The system is Squeeze and when
> update-grub is run it reports updating grub.cfg.
> >
I gave up and installed kbd. On boot up the initial font was large.
About half way through the boot up the scripts changed to tiny fonts and
then after a half dozen lines switched back to large fonts. The console
is now very readable but when mutt displays the threaded list of
postings the lines and arrows are replaces by strange characters.
Tom
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> >
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