Bug 1355913 - OVMF's serial console is purple
Summary: OVMF's serial console is purple
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: edk2
Version: 24
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Paolo Bonzini
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2016-07-13 00:31 UTC by Andy Lutomirski
Modified: 2021-01-06 08:13 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
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Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2017-08-08 15:33:23 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


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Description Andy Lutomirski 2016-07-13 00:31:35 UTC
Start gnome-terminal and do:

$ virtme-run --installed-kernel --qemu-opts -bios /usr/share/edk2/ovmf/OVMF_CODE.fd

First the screen goes blank, then the cursor turns purple, and then the guest boots in purple.  Admittedly, there are worse colors than purple :)

If I do instead:

$ virtme-run --installed-kernel --graphics --qemu-opts -bios /usr/share/edk2/ovmf/OVMF_CODE.fd

then it's not purple.

Comment 1 Laszlo Ersek 2016-07-13 13:45:15 UTC
This is most likely from the ConSplitterStdErrDriverBindingStart() function, in "MdeModulePkg/Universal/Console/ConSplitterDxe/ConSplitter.c":

  //
  // If both ConOut and StdErr incorporate the same Text Out device,
  // their MaxMode and QueryData should be the intersection of both.
  //
  Status = ConSplitterTextOutAddDevice (&mStdErr, TextOut, NULL, NULL);
  ConSplitterTextOutSetAttribute (&mStdErr.TextOut, EFI_TEXT_ATTR (EFI_MAGENTA, EFI_BLACK));
  if (EFI_ERROR (Status)) {
    return Status;
  }

This is not specific to OVMF, it is generic edk2 code. (I.e., the color purple itself.)

In your first command, you only have a serial terminal (I think), which is used for both console output and error output.

In your second command, you have both graphics display and serial. ConSplitterDxe multiplexes console input and console output (as text) from/to both, but only one of them (likely the graphics display) is used for error output, I think.

IOW, whatever device is being used as error output gets a default magenta foreground color set for it, apparently. When that device is the graphics display, it is not very noticeable, because no debug messages are printed to that directly (and UEFI apps like grub2, the UEFI shell, and the Display Browser set their colors explicitly). However, a bunch of other data might be printed to the serial console directly (guest kernel log, for example), which is then affected by the default magenta foreground.

I'm not too familiar with the console stuff in edk2, so this question should be best taken to edk2-devel. My "explanation" above may well be incorrect at least in some spots. Thanks.

Comment 2 Fedora End Of Life 2017-07-25 21:46:11 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 24 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 2 (two) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 24. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora  'version'
of '24'.

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Comment 3 Fedora End Of Life 2017-08-08 15:33:23 UTC
Fedora 24 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2017-08-08. Fedora 24 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.

Comment 4 Laszlo Ersek 2020-11-24 23:31:00 UTC
Unexpectedly related:

[edk2-devel] [PATCH v1 0/3] MdeModulePkg/GraphicsConsole : Console cleanup
https://edk2.groups.io/g/devel/message/67905
https://www.redhat.com/archives/edk2-devel-archive/2020-November/msg01067.html

Comment 5 Laszlo Ersek 2021-01-06 08:13:06 UTC
Should be fixed in upstream edk2 commit df77614e543e ("MdeModulePkg/ConSplitter: Change StdErr color to EFI_LIGHTGRAY", 2021-01-06).


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