When the Debian installer is booted (either from CD or netboot), it
displays a graphical splash screen (splash.rle)

When someone is accessing a server remotely using a HP iLO, they may not
have the iLO licensed for graphical modes (extra license fees have to be
paid to HP)

Alternatively, someone may be using a serial port for remote access
(e.g. through a Cisco 2511 with multiple async ports)

Therefore, it would be desirable to have one of these options:
- a non-graphical variation of the install CD
- a pause before entering graphical mode, with the user having the
chance to press a key choosing non-graphical install
- no use of graphics until the user has explicitly agreed

severity 509662 minor
tags 509662 wontfix
thanks

Hmm. Are you only talking about the splash screen (Etch installer) or
(also) about the graphical boot menu used introduced in the Lenny
installer?
See the notes in the following pages:
- http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/i386/ch05s01.html.en#boot-screen
- http://www.debian.org/releases/lenny/i386/ch05s01.html.en#boot-screen

We already have a huge number of installation media and variants...

AFAIK syslinux/isolinux does not offer those options.

I'm tagging this report wontfix as I don't really see any realistic way to
do anything about it.

Cheers,
FJP

In this case, lenny - please excuse me for not understanding the details
of this implementation
Thanks for pointing that out - the page correctly describes the issues.

However, the instructions given there don't work for an iLO - blindly
pressing keystrokes doesn't seem to work.

I had already discovered the fb=false parameter, and by setting the
syslinux args default=expert, timeout=3 and setting the kernel arg
fb=false, I'm able to PXE boot into the installer.
Couldn't it be recorded as a syslinux feature request?

Maybe the default configuration files could include commented out
variations of the workaround I've used myself, or even go as far as
distributing a netboot-nonfb.tar.gz on the mirrors?

Dann: could you retest this please?

Eh, if you are using netboot, why don't you just modify the syslinux
config on the tftp server to not use the graphical menu and splash screen
at all?

You are very welcome to discuss this issue with the upstream syslinux
maintainers. This is not really the kind of issue for which it makes
sense to record a wishlist BR in the Debian BTS. This needs to come from
upstream.

1) It's too late to do that for Lenny
2) That would only solve the problem for netboot where it can be solved
quite simply by the local admin anyway by editing the relevant syslinux
config files on his tftp server. It would not solve the problem for
CD/DVD images.

Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl> writes:

This is the same with Dell Remote Access Cards: at least some versions
only support text mode, and what is worse, they don't even forward
keystrokes while "waiting for video text mode".  So up to the ISOLinux
banner everything is fine, then you get a blank screen and no
interaction at all.

This is indeed very easy to work around when using netboot, but
extremely annoying when booting from CD.  And the solution is only and
ESC away...

One possible solution I can think of is having a couple of seconds
timeout before loading vesamenu.c32, which an alert user could use to
load menu.c32 instead, like this:

$ cd debian-installer/i386/boot-screens
$ mv syslinux.cfg graphical.cfg
$ cat >syslinux.cfg
prompt 1
timeout 30

default graphical

say ---------------------------------------------------
say Enter 'text' or wait 3 seconds for a graphical menu

label graphical
  config debian-installer/i386/boot-screens/graphical.cfg

label text
  config debian-installer/i386/boot-screens/text.cfg
$ sed s/vesa// graphical.cfg >text.cfg

The exithelp.cfg is pretty much mistaken (kernel and config exclude each
other), but that's a minor point.

I lightly tested the above with git syslinux components put into the
netboot image of the Alpha1 Squeeze installer, and liked the result.
What do you think?