[Bug 2080785] Re: GRUB menu doesn't show with os-prober entries on BIOS

[Mate Kukri]

I think it's disingenuous to say that dual booting two operating systems
on one computer is something non-technical users who don't understand
this do. And also I think it's legitimately possible that users used to
prefer the intended UX where you can boot the "default OS" without a
timeout, and hold a key when you want to boot the secondary OS.

But the entire reason this topic is even a thing is because the timeout
had to be introduced due to UEFI being inferior in keyboard handling,
and everyone got used to that as the default UX (including me and that's
why I was initially confused).

In reality pretty much all new computers are UEFI now, and the old
intended behaviour is only seen on select old computers with BIOS. Newer
versions of the UEFI spec have an improved input api that might allow
modifier detection, but this likely wont be implemented for backwards
compatibility. All new computers you can buy are UEFI, and will be going
forward and thus the timeout is here to stay for practically all
hardware that's not about to be recycled.

I don't think calling me "part of the problem" is not fair for not
wanting to get behind changing the intended behaviour of existing stable
distributions on legacy hardware due to one person's preference. Not to
mention the fact that those types of changes are almost certainly
against stable release update policy.

Maybe in an ideal world BIOS should get the timeout on upcoming
releases, but new bare-metal installations on BIOS with dual-boot are
almost zero I am guessing, so this is probably not worth the time, and
wouldn't help anyone.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2080785

Title:
  GRUB menu doesn't show with os-prober entries on BIOS

Status in grub2 package in Ubuntu:
  Opinion

Bug description:
  #GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden 
  has been default setting for at least a decade, also here on my various machines with multiple OSes. It did work in a reasonable manner: (wiki.ubuntuusers.de/GRUB_2/Konfiguration) "Die Einstellung hidden bzw. countdown wird ignoriert und das GRUB-Menü immer angezeigt, wenn mehr als ein Betriebssystem von GRUB verwaltet wird." (With more than one OSes being bootable through grub, the setting 'hidden' will be ignored).
  This made sense for single OSes (no need to show, and if, with Esc), as well as with multiple OSes (showing the OS that is going to come up). With my recent update (release), suddenly no more grub menu showed. 
  According to https://askubuntu.com/questions/1526795/grub-menu-doesnt-show-any-longer one had to set this grub variable to "menu". Immediately the grub menu popped up again. 
  All the hassle around this would have been unnecessary without the changed behaviour of grub with the identical variable. (While this change could be questioned, this is not my concern here.)

  It is an unnecessary bug behaviour to change items with the identical
  parameter. For security and user convenience, either the grub default
  ought to have been set to the 'safe' (no loss of OS) value of "menu",
  or a new parameter introduced; keeping the behaviour of existing
  parameters as such (and eventually only withdrawn after extended times
  of deprecation, if at all).

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 24.04
  Package: grub2-common 2.12-1ubuntu7
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.8.0-44.44-generic 6.8.12
  Uname: Linux 6.8.0-44-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.28.1-0ubuntu3.1
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
  CurrentDesktop: KDE
  Date: Sun Sep 15 18:27:31 2024
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-08-07 (1135 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 20.04.2.0 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20210209.1)
  SourcePackage: grub2
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to noble on 2024-08-30 (16 days ago)
  mtime.conffile..etc.init.d.apport: 2024-07-22T16:59:07

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