This page is about migrating GRUB Legacy to GRUB 2.
Grub2 in Debian-Installer
Initial proposal sent by Otavio: http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2007/04/msg00328.html
The issues to be resolved before switching to grub2 as default are tracked in the meta Bug: 477094
Regressions
lock / password mechanism (done, see here how to use it)
Menu's default=saved / grub-reboot isn't implemented.
- xen detection / setup in update-grub
Non-regression issues that may become essential (or at least, desirable) during lenny life period
Filesystems haven't been proof-tested with 64-bit offsets (2 TiB disks). Not really a regression (Legacy GRUB has the same problem), but it'll become critical in the future. There's a task for this in upstream: http://savannah.gnu.org/task/?7667
Grub 2 and the VGA parameter
In Grub2 the vga= parameter is deprecated 1.
To set a screen resolution for your console you can do the following log in as root
edit /etc/default/grub uncomment the GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 and change the resolution to something you can use e.g. 1024x768
edit /etc/grub.d/00_header search for: set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE} on the next line insert: set gfxpayload=keep verify that the new line is before insmod gfxterm
run update-grub
run reboot to confirm that your changes worked!
Althought the linux command in Grub2 does not honour the vga=ext option, the linux16 command does. If Grub2 says "vga=ext is deprecated. Use set gfxpayload=text before linux command instead" you don't need to downgrade to grub-legacy. Just replace linux and initrd by linux16 and initrd16 in each menuentry bloc you want to use VGA mode and add vga=ext or vga=F01 near the end of the linux16 line to get 80x50 text consoles instead of framebuffer. You may also replace ext by F00, F01, F02, F03, F05, F06 or F07 to get alternate VGA text resolutions (respectively 80x25, 80x50, 80x43, 80x28, 80x30, 80x34 and 80x60). Use vga=ask to get a chance at boot time to list all available VGA/VESA resolutions and chose one interactively before Grub2 passes control to the kernel. If you edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg instead of /etc/grub.d/10_linux remember your changes will be dropped if update-grub is launched. By the way, vga=normal is equivalent to vga=F00 and vga=ext is equivalent to vga=F01. (1)
470894 grub-installer: user parameters are not added to grub.cfg for grub2
473401 grub-installer: grub2 config for Windows partition does not boot
477083 grub-pc: Is excruciatingly slow when compared to grub (legacy)
477090 grub-installer: no support for dmraid and multipath for grub2
477092 grub-installer: does not support setting password for grub2
483971 support for device-mapper multipath