[lunar+] grub: no server specified, no suitable video mode found

[David Coe]

I'm bare-metal testing Kubuntu Lunar 23.04 on a collection of amd64 machines connected in an MPI cluster. Things have gone very smoothly indeed, despite it being still an alpha-release!

However, one machine (an elderly Dell Vostro 400) is showing a regression for Grub 2.06-2ubuntu16 compared with Kinetic 22.10. The following occurs during boot-up:

  error: no server specified
         no suitable video mode found
         no video mode activated

The grub menu stubbornly displays at 640x480 (AMD Turks driving a LG 24EA52 1920x1080 monitor usually picks up just fine). Auto-detection no longer functions and manual changes to GRUB_GFXMODE are ignored.

X11 starts and KDE initializes as usual (and at the correct resolution), so the error message is somewhat cosmetic and doesn't seem to affect more modern machines. Nonetheless, it does seem a bug that could/should be corrected.

Best regards and thank you.

David Coe

[David Coe (hooligan-red)]

To further confirm that grub2 2.06-2ubuntu16 (Lunar) has introduced a regression on 2.06-2ubuntu12.1 (Kinetic), at least on the Dell Vostro 400.

A. dual-booting Lunar and Kinetic from Kinetic's boot-manager auto-detects the 1920x1080 display with no diagnostics.

B. single-booting Lunar with it's boot-manager (2.06-2ubuntu16) back-graded with the set from Kinetic (2.06-2ubuntu12.1) also works just fine.

C. single-booting Lunar with the current (alpha) grub fails to auto-detect and defaults to 640x480 resolution with above diagnostics. I think it also fails to pick up alternative (breeze) grub themes.

Hope this helps! For the time being, I'll persevere with testing my MPI cluster with option B and apt-mark hold the grub package :-).

Regards

David Coe

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

I assume this is grub-efi-amd64-signed?

Please try installing grub-efi-amd64-signed from ppa:ubuntu-uefi-team/ubuntu/ppa.

IMPORTANT: This key is not trusted by the shim. On a secure boot system, you will have to either

(1) import the certificate:

wget https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/ubuntu-uefi-team/ppa/ubuntu/dists/lunar/main/uefi/grub2-amd64/2.06-2ubuntu17/control/uefi.crt
openssl x509 -in uefi.crt -out uefi.der -outform der
mokutil --import uefi.der

(2) disable secure boot validation either in the BIOS or using mokutil --disable-validation.

If this is using legacy boot, you'll want to try the new grub-pc from the PPA

[David Coe (hooligan-red)]

Many thanks Julian! I had downloaded the 2ubuntu17 debs from your 'proposed' site and was in the process of trying them.

I now have

  grub-efi_2.06-2ubuntu17_amd64.deb
  grub-efi-amd64_2.06-2ubuntu17_amd64.deb
  grub-efi-amd64-bin_2.06-2ubuntu17_amd64.deb
  grub-efi-amd64-signed_1.193+2.06-2ubuntu17_amd64.deb
  grub-pc-bin_2.06-2ubuntu17_amd64.deb

installed on the Vostro after having to use apt --fix-broken to clear out the back-graded 2ubuntu12.1 package setup :-(.

The error diagnostics (no server specified, ... ) have gone!! However, the grub menu does not auto-detect 1920x1080 resolution, respond to GRUB_GFXMODE changes nor (I think) to the alternative breeze grub theme layout. These were all OK with 2ubuntu12.1 but may either be a separate problem or I may have bungled which grub deb packages need to be installed.

Is there any thing further I might try? The other amd64 machines in the MPI cluster seem stable so I'm inclined to let sleeping dogs lie :-).

Best regards

[David Coe (hooligan-red)]

To correct some chaos introduced by my repeated upgrading and back-grading Grub, I did a clean install of the latest Kubuntu Lunar (beta) on the vintage Vostro 400. It is a PC/BIOS machine but (as I think is standard these days) insists/prefers to have an EFI partition to boot from.

As before, the vanilla grub2 2.06-2ubuntu16 produces all the boot errors/artifacts/diagnostics outlined above. This time, I back-graded just the grub2-common grub-common grub-pc grub-pc-bin 2ubuntu12.1 debs from the Kinetic archive thus avoiding any dependency issues seen with the 2ubuntu14.1 or 2ubuntu17 packages. Things then behave as expected!

I think it might (?) be a mistake to release Lunar with the bits of Grub aimed at PC/BIOS machines left as at present. If the regression is general (and not just Vostro and me), there is bound to be a flood of feedback :-(.

Best regards and, as always, my thanks.

David

[David Coe (hooligan-red)]

Hi Julian!

To complete the story: upgrading the same four packages (grub2-common grub-common grub-pc grub-pc-bin) from the 2ubuntu17 set, reintroduces the errant behavior of 2ubuntu16.

Version 2ubuntu12.1 is the only one working properly with PC/BIOS for me.

Regards

David

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

No need to I think, eventually I'll go setup a VM with BIOS boot and check myself, but

if you want you can try the 2.06-2ubuntu15 version too, if you have some time.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/2.06-2ubuntu15/+build/24889137

If this is broken, it's the security update and not the memory management changes.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
https://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/2012181

[David Coe (hooligan-red)]

Nope: grub2-common grub-common grub-pc grub-pc-bin from the 2ubuntu15 set also breaks the PC/BIOS boot.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

This is reproducible just by installing lunar in a VM and then rebooting. This is not an issue for the iso itself as it doesn't do graphics mode.

It's not a blocker as this is a cosmetic issue, will try to analyse further and fix in the 23.10 cycle.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

This does not appear to have been addressed in the 23.10 cycle. untargeting.

[Mate Kukri (mkukri)]

This is fixed in 23.10, 22.04 is just fine, and since 23.04 is almost EOL, it isn't a priority at the moment.

[David Coe (hooligan-red)]

I can confirm the bug is fixed for 23.10 RC on my Vostro 400. If you need to run 23.04 on a non-UEFI machine, back-grading grub2-common grub-common grub-pc grub-pc-bin to the 2ubuntu12.1 debs from the Kinetic archive has worked without issue for me these last 6 months.

Many thanks, good people!