no fsck progress displayed when booting without 'splash'

[nitrofurano]

Binary package hint: plymouth

Hi!

Since Ubuntu 10.04 i don't know what is going on with Fsck

Since no versions of Ubuntu splash screens provides options (like from keyboard) to switch them into tty, i simply disabled it with StartupManager - and as well, i kept this way during 3 years.

At Ubuntu 9.10 i used to have Fsck showing decently a tty progressbar, with a percent (or per-ten-thousand) numeric value of the Fsck progress, and this simply disapeared from Ubuntu 10.04, just looking like Fsck hanged or crashed somewhere - so, as you all can imagine, i always forced restart or shutdown, providing serious risks on damaging the hard disk.

When we are booting GNU/Linux (like Ubuntu), only using tty (as i like to use), it's very important seeing a displayed info updated at least once per second, and when running Fsck on Ubuntu 9.10, we have this, what is hugelly important - on Ubuntu 10.04, it simply disapeared.

Or maybe i should edit some config file somewhere to bring it back - do someone know where is it?

thanks and regards,
Paulo

 My concern is about the Fsck progress bar, which existed for more than
> 10 years, disapeared on Ubuntu 10.04 , and the visual feedback when
> booting in tty text-display mode is very important - this makes me
> think that Ubuntu crashed or hanged, making us forcing restart, having
> the risk on damaging the hard drive.

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but this appears to be a "regular" (non-security) bug. I have unmarked it as a security issue since this bug does not show evidence of allowing attackers to cross privilege boundaries nor directly cause loss of data/privacy. Please feel free to report any other bugs you may find.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

> Since no versions of Ubuntu splash screens provides options
> (like from keyboard) to switch them into tty,

That's not true. You can switch to tty from plymouth by pressing the 'Esc' key. The same key will let you display the splash screen when at the tty.

> i simply disabled it with StartupManager

> When we are booting GNU/Linux (like Ubuntu), only using tty
> (as i like to use), it's very important seeing a displayed info
> updated at least once per second, and when running Fsck
> on Ubuntu 9.10, we have this, what is hugelly important -
> on Ubuntu 10.04, it simply disapeared.

The Ubuntu team agrees that it's important to show fsck progress, which is why, when using *the default and recommended configuration*, you get this. If you insist on not using the recommended interface, it is non-trivial for the information about possibly parallel fscks to be displayed in a useful fashion. Your request is a valid one, but is unlikely to receive developer attention in the near future.

[Mark - Syminet (mark-syminet)]

It *is* true, we can tap <esc> but no fsck progress is given.

[Mark - Syminet (mark-syminet)]

Rants aside, I'm willing to look at the sources again and send a diff to support /etc/defaults/rcS line. We already change files all over the place for ubuntu - another option is no big deal. It's only two lines of C code so if someone is willing to put it in to shut us up, let me know. :-)

Best