[Bug 761830] Re: grub2 still hands off to blank tty7 on non-Server command-line-only systems

[Eliah Kagan]

I have now tested with the stable, release version of Natty. I did this
on i386 architecture (virtual machine file attached). As would be
expected from my previous results and the experiences of others as
documented in this bug, I found that the problem (handing off to tty7
when there's no GUI, and remaining there even after the system is fully
started up and ready for use) occurs in all these situations:

(a) A fresh, command-line only install from the Natty Minimal CD
(installing only core packages, with no extra selections).

(b) A fresh, command-line only install from the Natty Alternate CD
(using the "Install a command-line system" option in the F4 menu), both
before and after installing updates and rebooting.

(c) An upgrade to Natty from a freshly installed and fully updated
command-line only installation from the Maverick Alternate CD (using the
"Install a command-line system" option), both before and after
installing updates and rebooting.

However, consistent with
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/761830/comments/11,
I was not able to get this bug to occur with *any* Natty Server system,
even after attempting a number of possible different installations. I
tried with the following:

(d) A fresh install, using all default settings, from the Natty Server
CD, both before and after installing updates and rebooting.

(e) A fresh install, using all default settings except using "vanilla"
partitioning rather than LVM (in case that somehow made a difference in
the way GRUB2 got configured), from the Natty Server CD, both before and
after installing updates and rebooting.

(f) A fresh minimal install (using the "Install a minimal system" option
in the F4 menu) from the Natty Server CD, using otherwise default
settings, and not selecting any additional packages beyond the core
system, both before and after installing updates and rebooting.

(g) A fresh minimal install (using the "Install a minimal system" option
in the F4 menu) from the Natty Server CD, using otherwise default
settings except using "vanilla" partitioning rather than LVM, and not
selecting any additional packages beyond the core system, both before
and after installing updates and rebooting.

(h) An upgrade to Natty Server from a freshly installed and fully
updated command-line only default installation from the Maverick Server
CD (in this installation, I did not select any additional packages
beyond the core system when asked), both before and after installing
updates and rebooting.

There are other possibilities for Natty Server systems, of course, but
nonetheless, that represents a wide range of possible newly installed
Server systems.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/761830

Title:
  grub2 still hands off to blank tty7 on non-Server command-line-only
  systems

Status in “grub2” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: grub2

  Using the Natty Beta 2 Alternate CD, I installed two command-line only
  systems, and updated each of them (with "sudo apt-get update" followed
  by "sudo apt-get upgrade"). One was with the amd64 CD, on a Sony Vaio
  VGN-NW310F. The other was with the i386 CD, on a VMware Workstation
  7.1.4 build-385536 virtual machine (host OS: Natty amd64 with kernel
  version 2.6.38-8-generic). In both cases, when boot-up completed, I
  was on tty7 with a blank, black screen, with the exception of a
  blinking cursor at the upper-left corner. Pressing Alt+F1 through
  Alt+F6 gave me usable virtual terminals, and pressing Alt+F7 brought
  me back to that black screen. This is almost exactly the same behavior
  as I reported in bug 695658; later, a similar bug which was decided to
  also be about this issue was reported as bug 700686 and subsequently
  fixed, and bug 695658 was marked as a duplicate of bug 700686.
  Suspecting that this may be the same issue (i.e., that those bugs were
  perhaps not fully fixed), I ran this command on both systems:

  grep handoff /etc/grub.d/10_linux

  And, confirming my suspicions, I got this out on both systems:

      GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="$GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
  vt.handoff=7"

  I posted about this in bug 700686 and Colin Watson said I should open
  a new bug, so that's what this bug is. The information attached by
  apport is from the i386 system (i.e., the virtual machine). In order
  to make reporting this bug convenient, I did install two additional
  packages and their dependencies--openssh-server, and apport.

  I have not yet tested this in a newly installed Ubuntu Server system.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
  Package: grub-pc 1.99~rc1-12ubuntu1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
  Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic i686
  Architecture: i386
  Date: Fri Apr 15 10:29:08 2011
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Beta i386 (20110413)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: grub2
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)