Description of problem: Fedora 18 Beta anaconda installation on UEFI systems will have edit box of boot entry with too large font. grub2-efi installs unicode.pf2 to /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/fonts/. grub2-install copies unicode.pf2 to /boot/grub/fonts/. grub2-mkconfig (/etc/grub.d/00_header) does not look for font files in /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/fonts/. Anaconda on UEFI systems installs bootloader with efibootmgr without calling grub2-install, and installs unicode.pf2 with grub2-efi. Then it generates grub.cfg with grub2-mkconfig. Apparently, anaconda installation on UEFI systems doesn't have loadfont .../unicode.pf2 in its grub.cfg. Solution of bug 850783 relies on unicode.pf2 being loaded in grub.cfg. Now after several layers of fallback, the font still becomes the large DejaVuSans-Bold-14 with default grub.cfg. The large font then triggers bug 859632 (grub hangs). Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): All components are from F18 Beta. grub2-2.00-12.fc18 anaconda 18.29.2 from pxeboot. How reproducible: Not on BIOS systems. Always on UEFI systems. Steps to Reproduce: 1. A standard pxeboot installation from a F18 beta repo on a UEFI system. 2. grep ^loadfont /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg 3. grub2-mkconfig | grep ^loadfont 4. grub2-install /dev/sda 5. grub2-mkconfig | grep ^loadfont Actual results: After 1: the default font is very large (if bug 859632 is fixed); grub hangs when editing boot entry (if bug 859632 is not fixed). In 2 and 3, there is no "loadfont .../unicode.pf2" in grub.cfg (default). In 5, there is "loadfont .../unicode.pf2" in grub.cfg. Expected results: The default font has sane size. Or make use of unicode.pf2.
Proposing as a blocker for F18 beta. I don't see any direct violation of the F18 release criteria but I also think it's worth discussing.
Note that the scheme used in f18beta intentionally doesn't do what grub2-install would do. The grub2-install way of doing it is thus by definition not necessarily the right way to do it. But whatever is used instead should of course work just as well. Note also that grub2-mkconfig do to some extent depends on what grub2-install put in /boot/grub2. As mentioned elsewhere: In my opinion: If we have to ship a precompiled and signed grubx64.efi that looks for a grub.cfg under /boot/efi then the best solution would be a static grub.cfg that just contained enough instructions to find and load grub.cfg and everything from /boot/grub2/.
Discussed at 2012-12-10 blocker review meeting: http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-bugzappers/2012-12-10/f18final-blocker-review-3.2012-12-10-17.13.log.txt . This was accepted as NTH but rejected as a blocker, but really what we're trying to express here is that we believe that *either* this bug *or* 859632 should be fixed. We will mark 859632 as the blocker, but if this bug is fixed, it ought to negate 859632 in most cases and so it would no longer be marked as a blocker. In the case where 859632 was fixed directly, we don't believe the simple fact that the wrong font is used for UEFI alone is serious enough to be a blocker, but it is serious enough to be NTH, given the known consequences (it's ugly as sin and tends to break the cursor position).
Update: 859632 isn't actually taken as a blocker, now we looked at it in more detail. We think both of these are annoyances but not bad enough for enough people to block release, they are both NTH.
Problem is that unicode.pf2 in /boot/grub2/themes/system is a broken symlink when grub2 is used in UEFI mode only. Replacing the symlink with the plain file, or manually creating the missing /boot/grub2/fonts/unicode.pf2 file, AND regenerating grub.cfg with grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg is a possible workaround for me.
This message is a reminder that Fedora 18 is nearing its end of life. Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 18. 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 WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora 'version' of '18'. Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 18's end of life. Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we may not be able to fix it before Fedora 18 is end of life. If you would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version of Fedora, you are encouraged change the 'version' to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 18's end of life. Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes bugs or makes them obsolete.
Fedora 18 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2014-01-14. Fedora 18 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.