Bug#654645: 00_header: graphics mode fails due to loadfont check in big disk setup with /boot partition

[Vassilis Virvilis]

Package: grub-common
Version: 1.99-14
Severity: normal
Tags: d-i

Dear Maintainer,

I have the following setup.

* What led up to the situation?

A machine with old bios but with a new large and non supported by the bios
disk. As a consequence I created a different /boot partition at the start
of the disk hoping that the kernel and /boot/grub will be addressable by
the bios during boot.

Furthermore I wanted to enable enable graphics mode and pass it to the linux
kernel later on with the GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep option.

grub fails to enter the graphics mode because of loadfont failure.

More specifically,

in /etc/grub.d/00_header one can find:

if loadfont `make_system_path_relative_to_its_root "${GRUB_FONT_PATH}"` ;
then
  set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE}
  load_video
  insmod gfxterm

in /boot/grub/grub.cfg the above fragment becomes:

if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
  set gfxmode=1280x1024
  load_video
  insmod gfxterm

However /usr/share/grub resides on the / partition and it is inacessible
by the BIOS.

* What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or ineffective)?

I changed by hand /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 to /boot/grug/unicode.pf2 in
/boot/grub/grub.cfg and I copied the file there.

* What was the outcome of this action?

It boots fine now and it enters graphics mode - but I have to do that
manually every time I upgrade grub-common

* What outcome did you expect instead?

I would prefer the contents of /usr/share/grub/ to be placed in /boot/grub.
The disk space required is about 12MB.


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

Kernel: Linux 3.1.0-1-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=el_GR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=el_GR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages grub-common depends on:
ii  gettext-base        0.18.1.1-5
ii  libc6               2.13-24
ii  libdevmapper1.02.1  2:1.02.67-2
ii  libfreetype6        2.4.8-1
ii  libfuse2            2.8.6-4
ii  zlib1g              1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3

Versions of packages grub-common recommends:
ii  os-prober  1.49

Versions of packages grub-common suggests:
pn  desktop-base   6.0.7
pn  grub-emu       <none>
pn  multiboot-doc  <none>
pn  xorriso        <none>

-- no debconf information