Arch Linux

o_caino

Member

Registered: 2013-06-06

Posts: 166

[SOLVED] GRUB Error: You need to load the kernel first & Catalan

Hi everyone,
When I first installed Arch I tried to configure GRUB to show messages in my native language: catalan, as the rest of the system. After some trouble with the GRUB locale, I managed to get it to work.
Then, I ran

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

to regenerate the grub.cfg file in catalan. I opened the file and it seemed correct to me, so I rebooted the machine... But after launching the apropriate entry in the menu it showed this message (translated from catalan ):

Error: File not found
Error: You need to load the kernel first 

I was a total newbie, so my solution was to restore the grub.cfg backup I made...

Today, about six months later, I tried again to change the menuentries language. I ran into the same problem, but this time I realized what was causing the error.
The default english menuentry has a line like this

echo    'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
...
echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'

But the catalan is

echo    'S'està carregant el Linux core repo kernel ...'
...
echo    'S'està carregant la ramdisk inicial ...'

As you can see, there is an apostrophe in the catalan version just after the S that gets interpreted as a single quote by the echo command, thus closing the echoed expression...
I replaced the single quotes by double quotes in the GRUB menuentry editor (echo "blah blah") and it booted as usual!
Once logged in, I manually replaced the single quotes in grub.cfg.

The question is: Is there a way to automatically change the quotes when generating the grub.cfg file? Something like editing the /etc/grub.d/10_linux... Or a way to escape the ' character in the message so that it is not interpreted by the echo command?

I hope this helps anyone encountering the same or similar error, regardless of the language!

Thank you!

Last edited by o_caino (2013-06-24 20:26:50)

mimosinnet

Member

Registered: 2012-09-22

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Error: You need to load the kernel first & Catalan

Thanks a lot for reporting it! I was getting nuts with this issue. I have had a look at the gnu grub error list, but I have not seen how to report this issue.

Mil gràcies!

o_caino

Member

Registered: 2013-06-06

Posts: 166

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Error: You need to load the kernel first & Catalan

No es mereixen!
I'm glad my first contribution helped a comrade!

It seems that you need to login to submit a bug report.

siot

Member

Registered: 2009-11-10

Posts: 27

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Error: You need to load the kernel first & Catalan

Thanks! Related bugs reported to grub

M'estava tornant boig per culpa de l'última actualització que m'ha instal·lat el ca.mo que no tenia :S

Edit: Maybe it is due to lines 140 and 147 on /etc/grub.d/10_linux

Edit2: Updated closed bug: 37765 with new info.

Last edited by siot (2013-06-24 18:49:31)

o_caino

Member

Registered: 2013-06-06

Posts: 166

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Error: You need to load the kernel first & Catalan

Hola i gràcies a tothom!
Thank you all!
Issue solved.

Who would have imagined that just a pair of apostrophes could cause so many headaches...
Per sort açò és Arch Linux!

gux

Member

Registered: 2013-01-13

Posts: 3

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Error: You need to load the kernel first & Catalan

Gràcies per la sol·lució! Thank you so much!

Every time I generated a new grub.cfg file, I got that error. For example, when setting a new GRUB wallpaper. I was stucked with this... The only solution to make the system work again was generating the grub.cfg file from an archlinux live image.