There's something close-but-not-quite-the-same: by default the grub menu is hidden with an instant timeout (IIRC) but if a boot fails to complete, on the subsequent boot the menu won't be hidden. Google 'recordfail' if you're interested in the details.
AFAIK worse case you should be able to select the previous kernel in grub2 upon reboot. It just hangs after grub on this (bad) kernel I think...
Yeah but if you have a couple of hundred machines that aren't booting.... That's pretty worst case.
yeah - I hear you. :( Still better than being totally hosed...at least there is some option
That is pretty worst case. OTOH, it teaches the lesson about testing updates on a small number of hosts before rolling 'em out globally.
One has to learn that lesson at some point.
No, you have to manually restart, boot into grub and select the one that works