Bug#466598: grub-pc chokes on grub.cfg, hangs before menu

[Barry Schatz]

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Package: grub-pc
Version: 1.96+20080216-1
Severity: critical
Justification: breaks the whole system

Using the newest grub-pc package, I ran update-grub and then
grub-install. Chainloading doesn't work by the way, because
it doesn't create the chainload option in legacy grub. Booting
straight to grub2 results in "Welcome to Grub" and an
unresponsive computer.

In a previous release the if statements created by 00_header
PROVIDED BY THE GRUB-PC PACKAGE were a problem, but removing
those if statements doesn't avoid the problem any more.

I have had this problem on two computers, one a desktop and
one a virtual machine.

- -- Package-specific info:

*********************** BEGIN
/dev/hda1 / ext3 rw,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/hda1 /dev/.static/dev ext3 rw,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/hda9 /home ext3 rw,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/hda8 /tmp ext3 rw,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/hda5 /usr ext3 rw,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/hda6 /var ext3 rw,data=ordered 0 0
*********************** END

*********************** BEGIN /boot/grub/device.map
(hd0)	/dev/hda
*********************** END /boot/grub/device.map

*********************** BEGIN /boot/grub/grub.cfg
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/update-grub using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
set default=0
set timeout=5
set root=(hd0,1)
if font (hd0,5)/share/grub/unicode.pff ; then
  set gfxmode=640x480
  insmod gfxterm
  insmod vbe
  terminal gfxterm
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
insmod png
if background_image
(hd0,5)/share/images/desktop-base/debian-blueish-wallpaper-640x480.png ;
then
  set color_normal=black/black
  set color_highlight=magenta/black
else
  set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
  set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_hurd ###
### END /etc/grub.d/10_hurd ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, linux 2.6.24-1-686" {
	linux	(hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-1-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro
	initrd	(hd0,1)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-1-686
}
menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux, linux 2.6.24-1-686 (single-user mode)" {
	linux	(hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-1-686 root=/dev/hda1 ro single
	initrd	(hd0,1)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-1-686
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
*********************** END /boot/grub/grub.cfg

- -- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.24-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages grub-pc depends on:
ii  base-files                4.0.2          Debian base system
miscellaneous f
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]     1.5.19         Debian configuration
management sy
ii  libc6                     2.7-8          GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  liblzo1                   1.08-3         data compression library
(old vers
ii  libncurses5               5.6+20080203-1 Shared libraries for
terminal hand

grub-pc recommends no packages.

- -- debconf information:
* grub-pc/linux_cmdline:
* grub-pc/chainload_from_menu.lst: true
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