Re: [PATCH] Clarify "Press any key to continue..." message

[Colin Watson]

On Thu, Apr 03, 2014 at 12:57:22PM -0400, Prarit Bhargava wrote:
> On 04/03/2014 12:52 PM, Colin Watson wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 03, 2014 at 12:49:50PM -0400, Prarit Bhargava wrote:
> >> I have mixed feelings about changing this message since it is such a
> >> well known message.  OTOH, I've never really liked it myself.
> > 
> > Surely nobody can really be depending on it; I don't see a problem with
> > changing that kind of text, in and of itself.
> 
> Yeah ... but it is one of those things like the NMI dazed and confused 
> message.
>  Everyone knows about it, everyone agrees it could be better, but no one wants
> to change it because so much open documentation references it.
> 
> Try googling linux + "Press any key to continue" and you'll see what I mean.

Of the first two pages of hits, only two relate to GRUB 2; and given
that there's still another instance of "Press any key to continue" in
the code, even those might not be relevant.

Anyway, I really don't think this is at all important given that most of
those hits are not exactly very informative anyway, and we should not
shy away from improving messages just because people have made terrible
attempts to explain what's going on with a previous version of the
message with an open-ended set of causes.

> > It's not necessarily "for menu" - you get this for errors after a menu
> > item has been selected too, and then it's just a delay before booting.
> 
> Hmm ... really?  After a menu item has been selected?  I've never done that 
> before.

Yes; for instance save_env in a menu item when /boot isn't writeable by
GRUB will do it.

> > Seems like a lot of effort.  The actual delay is 2.5 seconds so a
> > countdown would look jumpy at the end ...
> 
> Just do a countdown and change the delay to an even 3 seconds.  Who is really
> going to care about a 1/2 second?

I don't think a countdown is necessary here, so I'm not going to spend
time writing code for it.  But of course you're free to do so ...

-- 
Colin Watson                                       address@hidden