Created attachment 9183 [details]
Screensot of the problem

(In reply to André DESMOTTES from comment #0)
> Mageia&-rc-x86_64-DVD.iso

Please specify the date of build too, this was supposed to have been fixed a few days ago.

Well it seems to be a build with at least drakx-installer-stage2 17.75 as the translations are those used to fix bug 20360.

Comparing this one with the screenshots in bug 20360, it looks like everything is scaled up. We could shrink translations again, but it hardly seems like a proper fix - we should prevent the UI elements from having such a huge scale and font with such low screen resolutions.

Summary: Hidden buttons in the Installer gui => Hidden buttons in the Installer gui - UI elements and fonts are too big for screen resolution
Source RPM: (none) => drakx-installer-stage2

humm..
It's a side effect of putting all buttons on the same bar:
http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/drakx/commit/perl-install/diskdrake/hd_gtk.pm?id=947ab9bb0fb06611b5bd54465f98545ff175afb2

Compare with mga5 that had 2 button lines:
https://doc.mageia.org/installer/5/en/content/diskdrake.html

A solution could be to revert to 2 bars :-(

CC: (none) => mageia
Depends on: (none) => 20360

(In reply to Rémi Verschelde from comment #2)
> (In reply to André DESMOTTES from comment #0)
> > Mageia&-rc-x86_64-DVD.iso
> 
> Please specify the date of build too, this was supposed to have been fixed a
> few days ago.

Mageia vanda 20170323 21:51
What is strange is that this problem doesn't exist in UEFI mode, same computer.
To be accurate, Mageia6-sta2-x86_64-DVD.iso has the problem in BIOS/GPT mode and not in UEFI mode, Mageia6-rc-x86_64-DVD.iso has the problem in BIOS/GPT mode and I don't know in UEFI mode because it doesn't boot (vmlinuz not found)

Created attachment 9194 [details]
The last option is un reachable

Created attachment 9195 [details]
Same problem with Mageia 6 RC

This is a different issue (the partitioning wizard).
Please open a different bug report for that

I think you are speaking about Comment 7, because Comment 8 is really the same bug.

Sorry, I meant:
I think you are speaking about Comment 6, because Comment 7 is really the same bug.

(In reply to Thierry Vignaud from comment #8)
> This is a different issue (the partitioning wizard).
> Please open a different bug report for that

André opened bug #20682 for it

CC: (none) => marja11

(In reply to Thierry Vignaud from comment #4)
> A solution could be to revert to 2 bars :-(

Or use a smaller font? The font looks excessively large on all these screenshots.

Using a smaller padding around texts could help too, if that's doable.

(In reply to Frédéric Buclin from comment #12)
> Or use a smaller font? The font looks excessively large on all these
> screenshots.
> 
> Using a smaller padding around texts could help too, if that's doable.
I agree, the font looks exceedingly large.

If it's a bitmap font, we'd likely have to ship a smaller font, and select the proper one based on the screen resolution. If it's already a TTF at this stage, we can instead just tweak the size.

Any suggestion on how we could fix that? It's surprising that this issue showed up only recently, would it be a regression from another change?

Just wondering: couldn't we increase the default screen resolution? This would fix the bug automatically, no?

I tried to change the screen resolution of the installer to 1024x768 by pressing F3 when starting the installation, but this has no effect. :( Is this feature broken? Or am I missing something?

(In reply to Frédéric Buclin from comment #15)
> I tried to change the screen resolution of the installer to 1024x768 by
> pressing F3 when starting the installation, but this has no effect. :( Is
> this feature broken? Or am I missing something?

IIRC, the installer forces the resolution to 800x600.

(In reply to Martin Whitaker from comment #16)
> IIRC, the installer forces the resolution to 800x600.

So what is F3 used for? Shouldn't it go away if it does nothing?

Created attachment 9270 [details]
increase the window size

Martin, what do you think about this patch?

I used drakx-in-chroot to test it, so I'm not sure which file the installer uses exactly to set the screen width and height. I guess it is _launchX() in install/steps_gtk.pm, but I'm not sure. Do you have an idea?

Thierry, any objection to defaulting to 1024x768 instead of 800x600 in the installer? (See comment 18).

(In reply to Frédéric Buclin from comment #18)
> Created attachment 9270 [details]
> increase the window size
> 
> Martin, what do you think about this patch?

I seem to recall Thierry being fairly keen to keep the installer running at 800x600. It's hard to believe anyone is still using hardware that doesn't support 1024x768, but still...

> I used drakx-in-chroot to test it, so I'm not sure which file the installer
> uses exactly to set the screen width and height. I guess it is _launchX() in
> install/steps_gtk.pm, but I'm not sure. Do you have an idea?

I think that when you start the X server, it simply uses the current resolution of the framebuffer. Checking the kernel boot options on the classic installer ISO, I see it is forcing the resolution to 800x600 by "vga=788". Manually changing that to "vga=791" gets the installer running at 1024x768.

The F3 function seems to be entirely broken, even if you remove the "vga=..." from the boot options.

(In reply to Martin Whitaker from comment #20)
> I seem to recall Thierry being fairly keen to keep the installer running at
> 800x600. It's hard to believe anyone is still using hardware that doesn't
> support 1024x768, but still...

What is the rationale behind this? 1024x768 was proposed as a standard in 1990, and if we trust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution#Common_display_resolutions, we see that less than 1% of users still use a screen resolution lower than 1024x768. IMO, focusing on the other 99% of users makes much more sense.


> resolution of the framebuffer. Checking the kernel boot options on the
> classic installer ISO, I see it is forcing the resolution to 800x600 by
> "vga=788". Manually changing that to "vga=791" gets the installer running at
> 1024x768.

Where is that code? I cannot find it in the drakx repo in git.


> The F3 function seems to be entirely broken, even if you remove the
> "vga=..." from the boot options.

Same here. Where is that code?

Created attachment 9271 [details]
increase the window size, v2

This patch is only useful if using drakx-in-chroot as Martin says that the kernel itself defines the screen resolution. So it's not a bugfix. :(

Attachment 9270 is obsolete: 0 => 1

(In reply to Frédéric Buclin from comment #21)
> (In reply to Martin Whitaker from comment #20)
...
> > resolution of the framebuffer. Checking the kernel boot options on the
> > classic installer ISO, I see it is forcing the resolution to 800x600 by
> > "vga=788". Manually changing that to "vga=791" gets the installer running at
> > 1024x768.
> 
> Where is that code? I cannot find it in the drakx repo in git.

This might be it:

% grep default_vga drakx-installer-images-2.44/images/make_boot_img
my $default_vga = "vga=788 splash quiet";
	linux => $default_vga,
#	patch => "patch $default_vga",
	noacpi => "$automatic$default_vga $default_iswmd audit=0 acpi=off",
#	restore => "$automatic$default_vga restore",
	      append => join(' ', grep { $_ } $default_append, $default_acpi, $default_vga, $default_iswmd) };
    $default_vga =~ /788/ or die 'we rely on vga=788 for bootsplash';
kernel /cauldron/isolinux/alt0/vmlinuz $default_append $default_acpi $default_vga $default_iswmd automatic=method:disk

 
> > The F3 function seems to be entirely broken, even if you remove the
> > "vga=..." from the boot options.
> 
> Same here. Where is that code?

http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/design/bootloader-theme/tree/src

It's written in an obscure scripting language - see /usr/share/doc/gfxboot-devel/gfxboot.txt (after installing the gfxboot-devel package).

Created attachment 9272 [details]
increase the window size, v3

Thanks Martin. I was only looking into drakx/perl-install/, which is why I missed it.

Thierry, is the check below still valid? I removed it as I set the default vga to 791 instead of 788.

$default_vga =~ /788/ or die 'we rely on vga=788 for bootsplash'


Note that I didn't test the change in images/make_boot_img. I tested all other changes, though.

Attachment 9271 is obsolete: 0 => 1

If I understand this cryptic language code correctly, the support for different vga modes was removed here:

http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/design/bootloader-theme/commit/src/common.inc?id=4ca721b1


- video.modes.list xmenu.video .xm_current get get .vm_mode get
-
-    dup 0 ge {
-      0x200 add "vga=0x%x " bc.cmd dup length add sprintf


Also, if I understand this code correctly, it simply added vga=... to the string, leaving existing vga=... alone, which is not good. In the original import, it seems existing vga=... were removed and replaced by the selected vga=..., which is more appropriate:

http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/design/bootloader-theme/commit/common.inc?id=534f2f44


+  syslinux {
+    % remove all 'vga' option
+    bc.cmd "vga" bootopt.find .undef ne { 
+      bc.cmd "vga" bootopt.remove free
+    } if
+
+    video.modes.list xmenu.video .xm_current get get
+
+    dup 0 ne {
+      "vga=%d " bc.cmd dup length add sprintf
+    } {
+      pop
+    } ifelse
+  } if


I personally have no intention to fix this mess. I don't understand how this stuff works. :)

With the last round of Mageia6-rc-x86_64-DVD.iso - May 14 - the problem didn't show up.

*** Bug 20959 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

CC: (none) => olegbosis

For the reference, comment 26 mentions it appears to be fixed, but the later duplicate in comment 27 seems to show it still appears in some configurations.

(In reply to Rémi Verschelde from comment #28)
> For the reference, comment 26 mentions it appears to be fixed, but the later
> duplicate in comment 27 seems to show it still appears in some
> configurations.

Frédéric's patch would likely fix that too.

Also, I still see some problems in the custom partitioning screen when French is used (although not as severe as the attached screenshot).

(In reply to Martin Whitaker from comment #29)
> Frédéric's patch would likely fix that too.

Note that my patch is probably not enough to fully fix the problem. I suspect the code mentioned in comment 25 would be needed too.

(In reply to Frédéric Buclin from comment #30)
> Note that my patch is probably not enough to fully fix the problem. I
> suspect the code mentioned in comment 25 would be needed too.

There is code in build1cmdline to remove all but the last vga= option from the constructed command line. But the kernel options from the selected boot menu entry are added after the options derived from the function key settings. So if we restored the first bit of code in comment 25, we would also need to remove the vga= option from make_boot_img.

If we used the second piece of code in comment 25, the user can't then manually override the video setting (e.g. with a vga= option that isn't provided by the F3 menu). So I think the first bit of code is the better choice. I've tested it locally, and with a bit of modification it works.

Note that drakx-installer-images-2.44/images/make_boot_img creates the bootloader for the net install ISOs, which do need the explicit vga= option (as they don't use gfxboot). I'm still trying to find out where the isolinux.cfg for the CI ISOs comes from.

Having tested running the installer with Frédéric's patch, the only negative effect I see is that the adverts displayed whilst installing packages look a little lost. It might look better if they could be centred in the available space, rather than being aligned to the top. On the plus side, increasing the screen resolution fixes a number of other minor visual and behavioural glitches, including bug 19196 and bug 19909.

Created attachment 9438 [details]
Patch to centre adverts

This improves the appearance.

So let's do it? :)

(In reply to Frédéric Buclin from comment #34)
> So let's do it? :)

Thierry hasn't objected, so I say go for it. I'll make the changes to the isolinux bootloader.

commit 5ed51c93f747126b7ce54ead783e40f65cf25282
Author: Martin Whitaker <mageia@...>
Date:   Mon Jun 19 18:18:03 2017 +0100

    Reenable use of F3 to set video resolution in isolinux bootloader.
    
    This is one part of a fix for mga#20624. F3 has not had any effect
    since commit 4ca721b1fe6022c985ab7b10d1bea36f657c28b3. This is not
    a simple revert, as we now want it to optionally override any vga=
    setting in the selected boot command line.
---
 Commit Link:
   http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/design/bootloader-theme/commit/?id=5ed51c93f747126b7ce54ead783e40f65cf25282

commit 14eb1e5893eb7bc6748cf388df7cb05a3f05c7da
Author: Frédéric Buclin <LpSolit@...>
Date:   Sat May 6 20:02:52 2017 +0200

    Increase the default window size of the installer to 1024x768 (mga#20624)
    
    This permits to correctly display the different panels as some
    of them contain quite a lot of data.
---
 Commit Link:
   http://gitweb.mageia.org/software/drakx/commit/?id=14eb1e5893eb7bc6748cf388df7cb05a3f05c7da

Martin, I think we can now close this bug and bug 19196. What do you think? We will only be able to test our fix once a new ISO is built.

I normally wait for someone to confirm the fix before closing a bug. This can be tested now, using the latest netinstall ISOs.

Quick test with the latest netinstall iso, in virtualbox.

Legacy/BIOS mode: starts on the first screen as expected in text mode, 800x600 (isolinux), then continues as expected in 1024x768/vga=791 (same as linux vgahi), stage2 stays in 1024x768. Looks good.

UEFI mode: starts with 1024x768 (graphical grub2) and stays in this mode.

F3 does not exist on the netinstall iso. Need to be tested on the CI.

Fonts are certainly not as big as seen on the attached screenshots.
Can't tell if French or Russian with many partitions still have a problem.

Bug 19196 also needs CI iso because the netinstall always installs the latest packages, therefore no questions about installing updates - with the floating window issue.

CC: (none) => shybluenight

Using Mageia-6-x86_64-DVD.iso with timestamp Fri Jun 30 23:31:00 CEST 2017:

F3 has no effect. The installer uses 1024x768, no matter what you select when pressing F3.

(In reply to Frédéric Buclin from comment #41)
> Using Mageia-6-x86_64-DVD.iso with timestamp Fri Jun 30 23:31:00 CEST 2017:
> 
> F3 has no effect. The installer uses 1024x768, no matter what you select
> when pressing F3.

Yes, the bootloader on the classic ISOs hasn't been updated.

CC: (none) => ennael1

Problem fixed with Mageia-6-x86_64-DVD.iso from Sat Jul 8 10:27:10 CEST 2017. F3 is now working correctly. \o/

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => FIXED