grub2 = beta?

Gene Heskett gene.heskett at verizon.net
Fri Dec 11 05:53:51 UTC 2009


On Thursday 10 December 2009, Goh Lip wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Thursday 10 December 2009, Ric Moore wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2009-12-10 at 00:23 -0800, Knapp wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Alvin <info at alvin.be> wrote:
>>>>> On Wednesday 09 December 2009 21:18:29 Jerry Lapham wrote:
>>>>>> Just got a grub2 update for karmic which seems to indicate it's a
>>>>>> beta.  Is it?  If so, why did Kubuntu 9.10 make it the default?
>>>>>
>>>>> - yes, it is beta. It's not only the default in kubuntu, but in
>>>>> ubuntu-server as well!
>>>>> - Honestly, I have no idea. I have never experienced more boot issues
>>>>> in 7 years of Linux.
>>>>>
>>>>> I like the fact that the GNU people are giving us a better boot
>>>>> loader, but I don't mind waiting for more stability.
>>>>> In this case (Ubuntu), it was pure hubris to change the boot loader to
>>>>> a beta version AND pushed upstart at the same time.
>>>>
>>>> Kubuntu and it would seem Ubuntu have made this mistake over and over
>>>> again. We now have a bunch of software that has been shoved down our
>>>> mouths that is beta or beta quality. We have Dolphine, KDE4.0, GRUB2,
>>>> PulseAudio, the networking stuff. When are they going to learn that
>>>> this distro is for newbies and for pros that want it to just work. We
>>>> are not beta testers.
>>>
>>> That's why I bailed out of Fedora, over the very same issues. Of course
>>> they state quite openly that Fedora is a beta test bed and nothing much
>>> else. Alas poor Hardy, I remember you being stable as a rock and quite
>>> impressed with the entire (k)Ubuntu experience. Alas... Ric
>>
>> If by Hardy, you mean 6.06 LTS, yes, its bulletproof.  I have an install
>> of 8.04 LTS that seems equally stable although I haven't beaten on it for
>> nearly so long.
>
>Normally, I don't comment on preferences, (Gnome vs KDE, synaptic vs
>aptitude, firefox vs opera, etc) but I think I shall add my 2 cents on
>grub. I have an 'obsession' with making sure my OS boots and I have
>therefore had some 'experimentations' with both grub-legacy and grub2.
>making custom boot cd's, usb sticks, and setting just a partition for
>booting, using the old lilo, grub-legacy and grub2. Had also tried
>super-grub, gag and one more which fails my memory.
>
>Grub2 is far superior on many counts; for one, it is modular, adding
>features which do not require a whole reengineering of the whole grub
>system making it more robust and more powerful and flexible. Grub-legacy
>has not been maintained for many years, causing others to come up with
>super-grub, etc (yet I find working with grub-legacy more instructive
>than using super-grub). I find many things - and one which is not so
>good - in grub2 (even in beta) much better than grub-legacy from a user
>point - really, who wants to know how the boot works, just make sure it
>boots - .
>
>My 'vote' is for grub2, overwhelmingly.
>
>Oh, I still use, in addition to Karmic, my trusty Hardy, KDE 3.5.10 for
>some of the reasons written on the messages on this thread, but I had
>long ago converted my Hardy grub to grub2.
>
And how was that accomplished?  I have no qualms about using a newer grub, if 
the docs are sufficient to mean it can be easily configured by the likes of 
an old, retired television engineer like me.  If it takes voodoo charms & 
black magic, then I'm not all that interested.

>Regards,
>Goh Lip

I just ran into grub2 again.  Running F10 normally here, but just installed 
Linux Mint 8, 32 bit version on /dev/sdb, which is derived from Ubuntu 9.10

I have this in my /dev/sda1(/boot for F10)/grub/grub.conf:

title Mint Linux 8 32 bit (from /dev/sdb)
	rootnoverify	(hd1,0)
	makeactive
	chainloader +1

Which from what little I can glean from the grub docs I've found, would seem 
to indicate that it would reload the grub2 from the mbr of /dev/sdb with that 
chainloader +1 command.

However, it just loops back to the selection list on /dev/sda1/grub/grub.conf

One thing of major note, the Mint installer allows one to open a terminal 
while its doing the install!  So you can wander around in the system and see 
what its doing, which can be very informative, witness that it scans the rest 
of the system, and incorporates other grub.conf or menu.lst's into its 
/boot/grub/grub.cfg, making suitable syntax edits as it does.

I think that's a heck of a good idea, if I could get it to actually access 
that boot menu without having to swap the friggin drives around in the bios.

Ideas on making this work, anybody?

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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