Bug#690538: grub-common: Please make submenu creation optional or at least allow users to disable it easily

[Axel Beckert]

Package: grub-common
Version: 2.00-7
Severity: wishlist

Dear GRUB Maintainers,

before grub 2.00, the boot menu consisted of one single list with all
installed kernels. Since 2.00 all but the latest kernel are now in a
submenu which is annoying if you often switch kernels or prefer to
have an overview over all kernels at boot without pressing any key.

So please provide a configuration option in /etc/default/grub to disable
the submenu creation to allow again the previous way to list kernels in
the boot menu.

By reading through 10_linux I found no obvious non-intrusive way to
disable the submenu. So I patched /etc/default/grub, 00_header, and
10_linux to get it optionally working again as before. Once these
patches have been proven to be reliable, I'll attach them to the
bug-report.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (900, 'testing'), (600, 'stable'), (200, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.5-trunk-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages grub-common depends on:
ii  gettext-base        0.18.1.1-9
ii  libc6               2.13-35
ii  libdevmapper1.02.1  2:1.02.74-4
ii  libfreetype6        2.4.9-1
ii  libfuse2            2.9.1-1
ii  liblzma5            5.1.1alpha+20120614-1
ii  zlib1g              1:1.2.7.dfsg-13

Versions of packages grub-common recommends:
pn  os-prober  <none>

Versions of packages grub-common suggests:
ii  console-setup  1.84
ii  desktop-base   7.0.3
pn  grub-emu       <none>
pn  multiboot-doc  <none>
pn  xorriso        <none>

-- no debconf information