GRUB 2.12 RC Delivers Two Years Worth Of Bootloader Improvements

[Turbine]

I really hate GRUB with a passion. I find it to be a really difficult bootloader to work with and it's extremely fragile.

Hopefully something better will come along.

[reba]

So far, GRUB never has failed me and in the meantime probably has churned several dozens of kernels.
I however don't do fancy stuff with it.

uboot was okay, too, but the efi partition was too small for more than a few kernels, a problem I don't have with GRUB as it is able to load the kernels from elsewhere.

[creative]

And still no GUI or a way to skip that f*cking glitch of initializing a 80x25 text console from the 80's.

You can make it look better by getting your native resolution by passing the 'videoinfo' command then editing your grub configuration then

GRUB_GFXMODE=The number representing your native resolution from videoinfo.

Then re-updating grub.

sudo update-grub

or however it's setup on your distribution.

At least that's what I do anyway.

[Deathcrow]

Question....are bootloaders basically not necessary anymore with UEFI? I haven't had GRUB installed in years.

I don't think there's anything as robust, reliable and convenient for full disk encryption (while entering only a single password right at the start of boot) like using grub. I can place all additional keys to decrypt other disks and partitions into initrd/kernel without worry, because it's secured by a key. When using a dedicated boot partition, the initrd is additionally secured from being stolen at runtime, as /boot is only ever mounted during kernel upgrades.

I'm not sure this experience can be replicated by kernel with efi stub.

You can make it look better by getting your native resolution by passing the 'videoinfo' command then editing your grub configuration then

It's not very clear to me why anyone cares about the look of a functional menu that you only ever get to see for 1 second every couple of days. I've been shaking my head in confusion about Grub1 themes decades ago.

[creative]

reba I have no issues with it either, but my first distribution used lilo.

[creative]

Deathcrow It's just the fun of customization. I actually see it everyday. I don't leave my system on. When I'm not using it I turn it off.

I also cut the power on my network stack when I am not using the net. I don't feel I need to be online constantly.

[toughy]

I always dual-boot with Windows, and GRUB gave me a lot of issues along the years, especially because of Ubuntu in the past. Happily I switched to other distros now. But GRUB has always been inflexible. Many years ago I asked for support for monitors in portrait mode (rotated monitors) on the mail list, with no answer. I know others tried to patch GRUB for this use case, but in the end the patch was too ugly, according to the authors themselves.

[kneutron]

And still no GUI or a way to skip that f*cking glitch of initializing a 80x25 text console from the 80's.

The hell you say.

https://github.com/Jacksaur/Gorgeous-GRUB

CRT-Amber and Fallout are noteworthy, at least. I've gotten them working on multiple systems.

If you need a GUI, install grub-customizer package or use Webmin.

https://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/GRUB_Boot_Loader