Configuring grub / grub2 to indicate the boot menu items

Configuring grub / grub2 to indicate the boot menu items

[Janitha Rukmal]

  Hi all,

I just remember there was an interesting discussion going on about 
Configuring grub / grub 2 to indicate boot menu items via beeps. Can 
somebody please do a recap as in how to do it right without getting the 
whole thing messed up. I'm asking this great favor because I found it 
rather confusing when following the trails through archives. Moreover 
such a recap would be greatly appreciated by many who need the same 
thing to be done. It'll be much much better if the recap would be done 
in a way that makes it easier for Linux newbies also to catchup.
Many thanks in advance!
Awaiting a positive reply
Janitha Rukmal

Re: Configuring grub / grub2 to indicate the boot menu items

[Janina Sajka]

Janitha Rukmal writes:
>  Hi all,
> 
> I just remember there was an interesting discussion going on about
> Configuring grub / grub 2 to indicate boot menu items via beeps. Can


I don't know about grub2.

In earlier grub, simply add a ctrl-g somewhere in the title statement.

Janina

> somebody please do a recap as in how to do it right without getting
> the whole thing messed up. I'm asking this great favor because I
> found it rather confusing when following the trails through
> archives. Moreover such a recap would be greatly appreciated by many
> who need the same thing to be done. It'll be much much better if the
> recap would be done in a way that makes it easier for Linux newbies
> also to catchup.
> Many thanks in advance!
> Awaiting a positive reply
> Janitha Rukmal
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
		sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net

Chair, Open Accessibility	janina@a11y.org	
Linux Foundation		http://a11y.org

Chair, Protocols & Formats
Web Accessibility Initiative	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Re: Configuring grub / grub2 to indicate the boot menu items

[Kitty Litter]

        I am hardly a grub 2 expert but you need to edit /etc/default/grub 
and uncomment the line grub_init_tune and modify the tempo, frequency and 
duration to get the desired beep. Then you must run update-grub as root to 
incorporate these changes into /boot/grub/grub.cfg. You aren't supposed to 
edit this file directly.
If you try putting a ctrl-g in the title of a menu in /etc/grub.d/10_linux 
you will get a beep when you press enter on an item but not when you arrow 
passed it, at least that was the behavior when I tried it 6 months ago. 
After you run update-grub you can look at /boot/grub/grub.cfg to see what 
order the menu items will be in. The menu items don't appear to wrap so if 
you want the last item you could arrow down a bunch of times and press 
enter. Remember you must run update-grub to incorporate these changes into 
grub.cfg. Also, info grub for grub docs.

Re: Configuring grub / grub2 to indicate the boot menu items

[Janitha Rukmal]

  Hi Kitty and Janina,

Many thanks for the tips.
I really appreciate it cause it's going to benefit a large Speakup/ 
Linux fan crowd up here.
Best regards
Janitha Rukmal


On 10/5/2010 5:42 PM, Kitty Litter wrote:
>        I am hardly a grub 2 expert but you need to edit 
> /etc/default/grub and uncomment the line grub_init_tune and modify the 
> tempo, frequency and duration to get the desired beep. Then you must 
> run update-grub as root to incorporate these changes into 
> /boot/grub/grub.cfg. You aren't supposed to edit this file directly.
> If you try putting a ctrl-g in the title of a menu in 
> /etc/grub.d/10_linux you will get a beep when you press enter on an 
> item but not when you arrow passed it, at least that was the behavior 
> when I tried it 6 months ago. After you run update-grub you can look 
> at /boot/grub/grub.cfg to see what order the menu items will be in. 
> The menu items don't appear to wrap so if you want the last item you 
> could arrow down a bunch of times and press enter. Remember you must 
> run update-grub to incorporate these changes into grub.cfg. Also, info 
> grub for grub docs.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Configuring grub / grub2 to indicate the boot menu items

[Steve Holmes]

OK, I got it to work with the new grub configurations.  Let me
describe what I did here.

With my grub2 setup on my archlinux system, I went into the 10linux
script found in /etc/grub.d; I believe this file is a standard issue
script for all distros using grub2.  Not sure if any of it was
customized by Arch developers or not.  I looked for the second
occurrence of
linux_entry.  The first occurrence is a function definition so we
don't want to change anything there.  The next or second occurrence
from the top will build the first menu option in your grub.cfg file.
The first quoted string following the 'linux_entry' call specifies the
menu title.  It currently begins with the variable ${OS}.  I just
stuck a Ctrl-G in front of this variable and immediately following the
opening quote mark.  Myself, I used emacs to do this by pressing c-q
followed by the Ctrl-G character.

After that, I saved and closed the file and did 
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
to regenerate the grub.cfg file.  On my system, I do not have a
update-grub command.  Dunno if that is a local Arch modification or if
update-grub is just on other distros.  Anyway, I looked at grub.cfg
for good measure and saw the ^G in the right spot.  I reboot and I
have the beep on the top menu item with this new configuration.  It
works like it always did before too.

The only side effect for me is I have to re-figure how to get the
right parms in for me to have a nice big display again.  But that's
another issue for me to work out.  I had been using an old grub.cfg
for a long time and never got around to using the new config file
system for grub.

On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 08:12:09AM -0400, Kitty Litter wrote:
>        I am hardly a grub 2 expert but you need to edit
> /etc/default/grub and uncomment the line grub_init_tune and modify
> the tempo, frequency and duration to get the desired beep. Then you
> must run update-grub as root to incorporate these changes into
> /boot/grub/grub.cfg. You aren't supposed to edit this file directly.
> If you try putting a ctrl-g in the title of a menu in
> /etc/grub.d/10_linux you will get a beep when you press enter on an
> item but not when you arrow passed it, at least that was the
> behavior when I tried it 6 months ago. After you run update-grub you
> can look at /boot/grub/grub.cfg to see what order the menu items
> will be in. The menu items don't appear to wrap so if you want the
> last item you could arrow down a bunch of times and press enter.
> Remember you must run update-grub to incorporate these changes into
> grub.cfg. Also, info grub for grub docs.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Configuring grub / grub2 to indicate the boot menu items

[Steve Holmes]

I have to add one other point here; you need to be sure that your
/etc/default/grub file has the TERMINAL=console uncommentted.  If not,
you will get a graphical display and for whatever reason, the
Control-G trick won't work unless terminal is set to console.  When I
go with the graphical default, I can have the highest resolution
possible and have it passed onto the kernel and I end up with a dis
play of 92 lines plus 256 columns.  That's an interesting side effect
but with a console that big, it ends up being slow to fill.  So there
seems to be a trade off here between a graphical terminal with no menu
item beeps or a text console defaulting to yucky 80 by 25 size but
have a beep on the menu item of your choice.

On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 02:45:58AM -0700, Steve Holmes wrote:
> OK, I got it to work with the new grub configurations.  Let me
> describe what I did here.
> 
> With my grub2 setup on my archlinux system, I went into the 10linux
> script found in /etc/grub.d; I believe this file is a standard issue
> script for all distros using grub2.  Not sure if any of it was
> customized by Arch developers or not.  I looked for the second
> occurrence of
> linux_entry.  The first occurrence is a function definition so we
> don't want to change anything there.  The next or second occurrence
> from the top will build the first menu option in your grub.cfg file.
> The first quoted string following the 'linux_entry' call specifies the
> menu title.  It currently begins with the variable ${OS}.  I just
> stuck a Ctrl-G in front of this variable and immediately following the
> opening quote mark.  Myself, I used emacs to do this by pressing c-q
> followed by the Ctrl-G character.
> 
> After that, I saved and closed the file and did 
> grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
> to regenerate the grub.cfg file.  On my system, I do not have a
> update-grub command.  Dunno if that is a local Arch modification or if
> update-grub is just on other distros.  Anyway, I looked at grub.cfg
> for good measure and saw the ^G in the right spot.  I reboot and I
> have the beep on the top menu item with this new configuration.  It
> works like it always did before too.
> 
> The only side effect for me is I have to re-figure how to get the
> right parms in for me to have a nice big display again.  But that's
> another issue for me to work out.  I had been using an old grub.cfg
> for a long time and never got around to using the new config file
> system for grub.
> 
> On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 08:12:09AM -0400, Kitty Litter wrote:
> >        I am hardly a grub 2 expert but you need to edit
> > /etc/default/grub and uncomment the line grub_init_tune and modify
> > the tempo, frequency and duration to get the desired beep. Then you
> > must run update-grub as root to incorporate these changes into
> > /boot/grub/grub.cfg. You aren't supposed to edit this file directly.
> > If you try putting a ctrl-g in the title of a menu in
> > /etc/grub.d/10_linux you will get a beep when you press enter on an
> > item but not when you arrow passed it, at least that was the
> > behavior when I tried it 6 months ago. After you run update-grub you
> > can look at /boot/grub/grub.cfg to see what order the menu items
> > will be in. The menu items don't appear to wrap so if you want the
> > last item you could arrow down a bunch of times and press enter.
> > Remember you must run update-grub to incorporate these changes into
> > grub.cfg. Also, info grub for grub docs.
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Configuring grub / grub2 to indicate the boot menu items

[Christopher Moore]

Steve,
A point of clarification on grub2.  To build the grub.cfg file you do the following:
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

This script replaces  update-grub.  The grub.cfg file is built from the /etc/default/grub and 
/etc/conf.d/grub/*

Chris
On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 01:18:16PM -0700, Steve Holmes wrote:
> I have to add one other point here; you need to be sure that your
> /etc/default/grub file has the TERMINAL=console uncommentted.  If not,
> you will get a graphical display and for whatever reason, the
> Control-G trick won't work unless terminal is set to console.  When I
> go with the graphical default, I can have the highest resolution
> possible and have it passed onto the kernel and I end up with a dis
> play of 92 lines plus 256 columns.  That's an interesting side effect
> but with a console that big, it ends up being slow to fill.  So there
> seems to be a trade off here between a graphical terminal with no menu
> item beeps or a text console defaulting to yucky 80 by 25 size but
> have a beep on the menu item of your choice.
> 
> On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 02:45:58AM -0700, Steve Holmes wrote:
> > OK, I got it to work with the new grub configurations.  Let me
> > describe what I did here.
> > 
> > With my grub2 setup on my archlinux system, I went into the 10linux
> > script found in /etc/grub.d; I believe this file is a standard issue
> > script for all distros using grub2.  Not sure if any of it was
> > customized by Arch developers or not.  I looked for the second
> > occurrence of
> > linux_entry.  The first occurrence is a function definition so we
> > don't want to change anything there.  The next or second occurrence
> > from the top will build the first menu option in your grub.cfg file.
> > The first quoted string following the 'linux_entry' call specifies the
> > menu title.  It currently begins with the variable ${OS}.  I just
> > stuck a Ctrl-G in front of this variable and immediately following the
> > opening quote mark.  Myself, I used emacs to do this by pressing c-q
> > followed by the Ctrl-G character.
> > 
> > After that, I saved and closed the file and did 
> > grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
> > to regenerate the grub.cfg file.  On my system, I do not have a
> > update-grub command.  Dunno if that is a local Arch modification or if
> > update-grub is just on other distros.  Anyway, I looked at grub.cfg
> > for good measure and saw the ^G in the right spot.  I reboot and I
> > have the beep on the top menu item with this new configuration.  It
> > works like it always did before too.
> > 
> > The only side effect for me is I have to re-figure how to get the
> > right parms in for me to have a nice big display again.  But that's
> > another issue for me to work out.  I had been using an old grub.cfg
> > for a long time and never got around to using the new config file
> > system for grub.
> > 
> > On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 08:12:09AM -0400, Kitty Litter wrote:
> > >        I am hardly a grub 2 expert but you need to edit
> > > /etc/default/grub and uncomment the line grub_init_tune and modify
> > > the tempo, frequency and duration to get the desired beep. Then you
> > > must run update-grub as root to incorporate these changes into
> > > /boot/grub/grub.cfg. You aren't supposed to edit this file directly.
> > > If you try putting a ctrl-g in the title of a menu in
> > > /etc/grub.d/10_linux you will get a beep when you press enter on an
> > > item but not when you arrow passed it, at least that was the
> > > behavior when I tried it 6 months ago. After you run update-grub you
> > > can look at /boot/grub/grub.cfg to see what order the menu items
> > > will be in. The menu items don't appear to wrap so if you want the
> > > last item you could arrow down a bunch of times and press enter.
> > > Remember you must run update-grub to incorporate these changes into
> > > grub.cfg. Also, info grub for grub docs.
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup