Description of problem: if a command like : terminal --timeout=10 serial console is used on the grub configuration, a polling process is started that allow the user to select the terminal where it is connected and that is going to be used as input/output for the grub console. after any key is pressed or the timeout is reached, the console selected (the first one if no key is pressed) is being used to display the menu and gather input for the user. the problem is that if a linux kernel is selected, there is no way to notify the kernel which console was selected by the boot loader and therefore the boot console used by the kernel is selected again using the linux kernel heuristics (if a console parameter is used, that console is selected, if several console parameters where used, the output goest to all the consoles defined and the input is received from the last one selected, if none console parameter is used, the kernel tests for a vga card and if it founds one it uses that as a console or the first serial port) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): All Actual results: the console selected by the kernel depends on the "console" parameters appended or in its own heuristic without any clue from the boot loader Expected results: if the serial console is selected, the kernel should get notified that it is running on a serial console and its configuration from the bootloader, and the parameters used should match the terminal selected Additional info: in order to allow different parameters to be appended to the kernel conditionally a conditional parameter has been added to configutil to allow it to load a different configuration for each terminal defined. the first configuration is loaded (grub.conf) that allows the user to select a terminal, then a different configuration is loaded for each posible terminal being selected (grub-serial.conf or grub-console.conf). using this process, the user is allowed to use any option that matches its selected terminal on a terminal by terminal basis (console parameters, splash images, special titles)
Created attachment 90993 [details] patch that applies to 0.93-5 to add the option detailed could be used on older versions and the latest CVS too
Created attachment 90994 [details] file with the configuration files shown for the test case
This isn't something that's going to be added as a local patch and doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. If you do an install using a serial console, then anaconda will set up both grub and the post-install kernel for use with serial consoles. If you feel strongly about it, feel free to file in the upstream bug reporting system at http://bugcomm.enbug.org/?project=grub&mode=project