Bug#594967: Bug #594967: [poulsbo] grub-pc Hangs After "Welcome to GRUB!"

[P. J. McDermott]

On 01/01/2011 06:57 PM, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 01, 2011 at 06:35:52PM -0500, P. J. McDermott wrote:
>   
>> Considering the machines this is affecting (machines with the Poulsbo
>> chipset) and the configuration workaround, I'd bet the issue lies in the
>> video subsystem. So far, the changes in the video/ directory appear to
>> be mostly code re-factoring, so I think my next step will be to add some
>> debugging output to 20100702-1's kernel and see where GRUB hangs up or
>> what isn't being done. Don't expect any miracles though, as this is my
>> first time in the GRUB 2 code. ;) If anyone has any thoughts on what the
>> problem might be or familiarity with the GRUB kernel's initialization of
>> the video subsystem, that would be helpful.
>>     
> I think (with respect) that Vladimir was mistaken when he said that the
> video changes in 20100702-1 only affected the EFI port.
>
> One effect of these changes was to load the video_cirrus and video_bochs
> modules by default (you can test whether this is the culprit by
> commenting them out in grub.cfg).  I've seen a handful of systems that
> hang while trying to enumerate the PCI bus in GRUB; it so happens that
> those are the only modules that usually trigger GRUB's PCI bus
> enumeration in normal circumstances ...
>
> You can also verify this at a lower level by trying 'lspci' at a GRUB
> prompt.  If it's the same problem, this will hang.
>   

I noticed the new bochs and cirrus files, but I didn't think they would
affect a Poulsbo system. You're right though; I commented out those
lines, and I'm now looking at a graphical menu for "GNU GRUB  version
1.98+20100804-11" (as installed by Squeeze beta1's debian-installer) on
an AO751h. I suppose the problem then is in either grub_pci_iterate() or
the hook functions passed to it by the cirrus and bochs modules?

> Unfortunately, I haven't had my hands on an affected machine for more
> than a day or so, and that was when I was under deadline pressure so a
> workaround was the best I could manage.  Steve, is your affected system
> at home?  Maybe I could visit at some point (for others on the bug,
> we're in the same city) ...
>   

I can do testing and debugging on my system as well, if it helps. I
might poke around grub_pci_iterate() and the hook functions tonight or
tomorrow sometime.

P. J.