#944679 extlinux: Visual bugs while editing a long kernel command line

Package:
extlinux
Source:
syslinux
Description:
collection of bootloaders (Linux ext2/ext3/ext4, btrfs, and xfs bootloader)
Submitter:
Mikhail Morfikov
Date:
2019-12-23 19:57:03 UTC
Severity:
important
#944679#5
Date:
2019-11-13 16:59:13 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

My current kernel command line is about 400-character long. When it was
shorter, I didn't have any issues when I wanted to edit this line in the
bootloader screen by selecting some entry and pressing "E".

I recently added some other kernel parameters to the cmd line, and I noticed
many visual bugs in the bootloader screen. Basically with each cursor movement
(back and forth), I get an extra text line in the screen output (copy of the
current line scrolled up). Also characters in the cmd line disappear or change
when I move the cursor back. The visual bugs make it almost impossible to edit
the kernel cmd line. Also When I press the backspace key (or the back arrow
key)
for a longer period of time (let's assume I want to delete some parameters
entirely from the line), I hear the hardware beeper which is really annoying.

I found out that the problem appears when I have more than 4 lines of text on
the screen when editing the cmd line. So fifth (and next ones) will trigger the
visual bugs, while 4 (and less) won't.

So what to do with it?



- -- System Information:
Debian Release: bullseye/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (130, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 5.3.11-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8),
LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages extlinux depends on:
ii  libc6  2.29-3

Versions of packages extlinux recommends:
ii  syslinux-common  3:6.04~git20190206.bf6db5b4+dfsg1-1

extlinux suggests no packages.
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#944679#10
Date:
2019-12-23 18:30:27 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Mikhail,

apologies for the long delay, there was a lot going on the before winter
holidays.

I'll look into this and try to reproduce this within the next few days.
To speed things up, can you provide me with your configuration?

If you're able to perform some test, can you check whether the
behavior is consistent when using a different UI modules (menu.c32 or
vesamenu.c32).

Thanks
Lukas

#944679#17
Date:
2019-12-23 19:53:01 UTC
From:
To:
Here's my config:

========================================
DEFAULT debian
PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 200
UI vesamenu.c32
MENU MARGIN 10
MENU WIDTH 80
MENU ROWS 10
MENU HELPMSGROW 25
MENU CMDLINEROW 25
MENU TABMSGROW 25
MENU HSHIFT 0
MENU VSHIFT 0
MENU TITLE !!! BOOT !!!
MENU BACKGROUND background_640x480.png
MENU COLOR border       30;44   #40ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR title        1;36;44 #9033ccff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR sel          7;37;40 #e0ffffff #20ffffff all
MENU COLOR unsel        37;44   #50ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR help         37;40   #c0ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout_msg  37;40   #80ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout      1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR msg07        37;40   #90ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR tabmsg       31;40   #30ffffff #00000000 std

LABEL debian
    MENU LABEL Debian 5.4.6-amd64
    KERNEL ../vmlinuz-5.4.6-amd64
    APPEND root=/dev/mapper/wd_black_label-root net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0 audit_backlog_limit=2048 log_buf_len=32M systemd.log_target=kmsg systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=0 printk.devkmsg=on swapaccount=1 luks.crypttab=no page_poison=1 slab_nomerge slub_debug=FZP pti=auto mds=full vsyscall=none spec_store_bypass_disable=on lockdown=none apparmor=1 security=apparmor ro loglevel=4
    INITRD ../initrd.img-5.4.6-amd64
    TEXT HELP
    Debian (/dev/sda1).
    ENDTEXT

MENU CLEAR
========================================
I tested both menu.c32 and vesamenu.c32, and they have the same issue.