GRUB2 on Joggler

We have been having some issues with ELILO and large initrds in the #mer channel on irc.freenode.net, so we started investigating GRUB2.

The problem with GRUB2 was that it did not initialize video correctly and hence did now show the framebuffer console when booting. Another problem was that it did not have a TextModeHack.

For the technical side of these problems: GRUB2 did not pass correct video information in the linux kernel parameters due to it only supporting UGA video. Thanks to 'bean''s patch, I was able to construct a working GRUB2. UPDATE: now with adq's updated patch, we no longer need to use screen.efi as it contains a TextModeHack now - thanks to him for the great hack!

To compile GRUB2:

• Grab the source and untar it
• Patch it with this patch (grub-gop-video-v1.patch, patch -p1 it)
• ./configure --with-platform=efi
  
• Run 'make'
• Make a .efi file: ./grub-mkimage -d . -o grub.efi part_msdos hfsplus fat ext2 normal sh chain boot configfile linux
• If you're too lazy or incapable of building, use this grub.efi
  

To use it in practice:

• Make a efi\grub directory and put grub.efi in there
• Put in the root of the FAT partition, file boot.nsh:
  
  fs1:
  cd \efi\grub
  grub
  
  And file startup.nsh:
  
  fs1:boot2
  fs0:boot
  
• Put in a grub.cfg file in \efi\tools (sample one linked, not working, you need to edit it). See elilo config in the other post for inspiration.
  
• If you do not need interactivity with the menu (letting it time out to the default item), you do not have to press ESC at bootup.

Enjoy - if you're a Joggler hacker, come to #mer on irc.freenode.net, a good bunch of us there by now. Webchat here.