Ubuntu Wiki

Redesign GRUB 2 menu on Ubuntu

• Sponsor: Viper550

• Posted: September 27, 2011

• Due: 12.04?

• Assigned: Team Lead / Facilitator

• Packages affected: grub

Rationale

The next version of Windows (while using the wayward workaround of launching parts of the OS first in order to show it) will finally have an elegant and graphical boot menu for selecting operating systems and repair options. Yet here, our bootloader still has shades of DOS, even though it has been recently overhauled under the hood with the much more powerful GRUB 2.

Because Ubuntu is aimed more at a general audience, a more user-friendly and comfortable interface for boot and recovery management would be beneficial in making such tasks less daunting to initiate, and making elements from Ubuntu's current visual style easier to incorporate at all stages of the boot

Assumptions

• GRUB 2 is a lot more flexible in regards to theming, including the ability to use true-type fonts and high resolution VESA graphics.
• This could be quite easy to implement.

Use Cases

• John thinks that a recent update to his kernel has caused issues. He has recently learned that previous kernels are maintained as fallbacks after these updates occur. However, he does not realize that this option is known as "Previous Linux Versions", as he confused it for being previous versions of the entire operating system. A more clear and concise menu system could solve this.
• Sally wonders why her boot menu isn't as slick and polished as the rest of the system (oh, what a lame use case)

Design

I have mocked up a potential workflow:

Implementation

We would definitely have to rig a GRUB 2 theme. There may need to be ways to implement a more graphical, yet still non-X based recovery menu.

CategoryArtwork