newbie question - grub

[Gustin Johnson]

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Maca Cassar wrote:
> hi, i have a bit of a problem installing ubuntu studio on a sata disk
> because of grub, it always fails.
> 
Because of your desired configuration it fails.  GRUB works fine, and
can be made to do what you want.

> in a nutshell - i have tried different linux dists these past few months
> to test - also planet ccrma and other non audio production types, but
> eventually got to ubuntu studio and only did a test install about a
> month ago.
> 
> it is no longer installed right now and i want to reinstall it for
> proper use, but the problem i am having is not limited to ub-studio, and
> i mean i have come across this before.
> 
You may wish to become very familiar with the GRUB documentation:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/

> basically i have 3 large disks and i always use a whole one for each os
> -> 1 is IDE and has windows64, and is normally recognised as the first
> disk, whether or not it is set as boot in bios.

This disk is one that you install GRUB into the MBR of.

> the other 2 are sata, one is free (where i want studio64), and one has
> freebsd (which i'm using as main os and can run most popular open source
> audio programs - but i am still learning about the os and it is beyond
> my expertise to optimize as a production system).
> 
> i am not sure wether grub fails because the drives are sata or because
> they are not the firstt disks, i eventually had wiped the IDE drive and
> tried studio64 there, and it worked no problem, but i later needed to
> reinstall windows on that drive and want studio64 another drive.
> 
No, it has nothing to do with SATA drives.  You have 3 drives, with 3
OSs.  You need to sort out the bootloader.  GRUB is probably your best
bet for booting all 3, and it also needs to be installed on the primary
drive, where the BIOS looks to start booting an OS.

> What happens is that the os installs ok, but then grub fails and it
> don't know much about playnig with it - either manual install of what,
> or whether lilo is good - haven't tried.
> 
> should i be having this problem?

Yes.  Triple boot is asking for pain.  It can work, but it is also a bit
of a headache to maintain.  You need to keep track of which bootloader
is installed on the primary disk, and then make sure that it knows where
all the OSs are.  GRUB supports more OSs than Lilo.

You will have to set up GRUB manually with a rescue CD.  I use
systemrescuecd but there are a number of them that do the job.
> 
> p.s. also, on a different note and out of curiousity ( since i don't
> know much about linux), is there a technical reason studio 64 is ubuntu
> as opposed to other linux? or just a matter of preference?
> 
The current version of 64Studio is Debian based and their future PC
releases will remain so.  Ubuntu is a Debian derivative and so it should
be reasonably straight forward for the 64Studio guys to do their custom
work around Ubuntu.

Hth,
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