Bug#465247: grub-pc: Missing documentation of config variables.

[Michael Biebl]

Package: grub-pc
Version: 1.96+20080210-1
Severity: normal

After installing grub-pc, one thing I wanted to change was to enable the
quiet option (which imho should be default, separate bug report will
follow).
It was not easy to find out, how to do that. There wasn't either a
README.Debian, nor a commented /etc/default/grub file.

After digging into  /etc/grub.d/10_linux, I found, that (most likely)
the preferred way to change the kopts, is to 
add GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX to /etc/default/grub.
Imho GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX should be added to /etc/default/grub by default
with comments about the available options.
There are also other config variables, like GRUB_DRIVE_BOOT or
GRUB_DEVICE which aren't documented and easy accessible.

Cheers,
Michael


-- Package-specific info:

*********************** BEGIN /proc/mounts
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
none /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
none /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw 0 0
/dev/sda6 / ext3 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,user_xattr,acl,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/sda6 /dev/.static/dev ext3 rw,errors=remount-ro,user_xattr,acl,data=ordered 0 0
tmpfs /lib/init/rw tmpfs rw,nosuid 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec 0 0
fusectl /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw 0 0
/dev/sda7 /home reiserfs rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/sda3 /mnt/gemeinsam vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0000,dmask=0000,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,utf8 0 0
binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/windows fuseblk rw,nosuid,nodev,user_id=1000,group_id=1000,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
*********************** END /proc/mounts

*********************** BEGIN /boot/grub/device.map
(hd0)	/dev/sda
*********************** END /boot/grub/device.map

*********************** BEGIN /boot/grub/grub.cfg
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/update-grub using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
set default=0
set timeout=5
set root=(hd0,6)
if font (hd0,6)/usr/share/grub/unicode.pff ; then
  set gfxmode=640x480
  insmod gfxterm
  insmod vbe
  terminal gfxterm
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
insmod tga
if background_image (hd0,6)/usr/share/images/desktop-base/debian-blueish-wallpaper-640x480.tga ; then
  set color_normal=black/black
  set color_highlight=magenta/black
else
  set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
  set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_hurd ###
### END /etc/grub.d/10_hurd ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, linux 2.6.24.1" {
	linux	(hd0,6)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24.1 root=/dev/sda6 ro quiet
	initrd	(hd0,6)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24.1
}
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, linux 2.6.24.1 (single-user mode)" {
	linux	(hd0,6)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24.1 root=/dev/sda6 ro single quiet
	initrd	(hd0,6)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24.1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/11_gentoo ###
menuentry "Gentoo 2007.0, kernel 2.6.24-gentoo-r1" {
	linux	(hd0,8)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-gentoo-r1 root=/dev/sda8 ro quiet 
}
### END /etc/grub.d/11_gentoo ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/12_ubuntu ###
menuentry "Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.24-7-generic" {
	linux	(hd0,9)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-7-generic root=/dev/sda9 ro quiet splash 
	initrd	(hd0,9)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-7-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/12_ubuntu ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/13_fedora ###
menuentry "Fedora, kernel 2.6.23.14-115.fc8" {
	linux	(hd0,10)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.23.14-115.fc8 root=/dev/sda10 ro quiet rhgb 
	initrd	(hd0,10)/boot/initrd-2.6.23.14-115.fc8.img
}
### END /etc/grub.d/13_fedora ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/14_windows ###
menuentry "Windows XP" {
	set root=(hd0,1)
	chainloader +1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/14_windows ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
	linux	(hd0,6)/boot/memtest86+.bin
}
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
*********************** END /boot/grub/grub.cfg

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (300, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.24.1
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages grub-pc depends on:
ii  base-files                4.0.2          Debian base system miscellaneous f
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]     1.5.19         Debian configuration management sy
ii  libc6                     2.7-6          GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  liblzo1                   1.08-3         data compression library (old vers
ii  libncurses5               5.6+20080203-1 Shared libraries for terminal hand

grub-pc recommends no packages.

-- debconf information excluded