grub2 = beta?

Goh Lip g.lip at gmx.com
Fri Dec 11 07:24:54 UTC 2009


Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 10 December 2009, Goh Lip wrote:

> 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.


The simplest (non-voodoo and don't require a television engineering 
certificate, just maybe rocket science  :) )method is just
sudo apt-get install grub-pc

Watch out during installation when it will initially use chainload, then 
further instructions will follow. Follow through to finish.


> 
> 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



Yes, indeed. Booting from grub-legacy menu into grub2 OS and vice-versa 
will necessitates the use of chainloading and chainloading will boot 
into the menu screen of the second boot.



> 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?
> 

To accomplish this, you can manually add an entry to bypass the second 
boot; or, to convert all your OS's to a single type grub, as in all in 
grub2 or all in grub-legacy.

To manually add an entry in grub2, add to etc/grub.d/40_custom instead 
of modifying the grub.cfg.


As in all cases where there are kernel updates, remember to update the 
"mbr-grub" (grub that was set to mbr) including the manually added entries.

One advantage of using grub2 as the "mbr-grub" is that kernel updates of 
other OS's by just changing the kernel numbers eg, just changing 
2.6.31-15-generic to 2.6.31-16-generic    or
2.6.24-25-generic to 2.6.24-26-generic


Another simpler (rocket science :) ) method is to just allow 
chainloading to the second boot but to set (at the second boot) time out 
to 3 secs and hidden menu.


Hope this helps, Gene.

Regards,
Goh Lip



-- 
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and 
write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
                     -Alvin Toffler





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