Grub 2 in Jaunty/Karmic can break double boot configuration

[Lucio M Nicolosi]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 8:23 PM, NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On 10/02/2009 03:21 PM, NoOp wrote:
> ...
>>
>> Did you read these before attempting?
>> http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/beta
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2
>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/Grub2Testing
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/376879
>
> Sorry if that implied "RTFM", it wasn't intended that way. Instead, I am
> curious to know if you did review those links before installing. If so &
> you had problems not mentioned in those, then perhaps it might be useful
> to file a bug and/or modify/add-to the wiki's so that they cover this issue.
>

NoOp

But you're right, I didn't RTFM (and now at least I know what this
acronym means).

Regarding Karmic, I had to delete some unwanted (8.10) partitions to
make space for Karmic, but as my Jaunty of choice was the 12th, this
required gparted, editing menu.list, resetting grub, etc. things that
usually make me nervous (backup? what's backup?). After this my jaunty
was intact and I was left with a nice empty space at the beginning of
the disk, ready for a lonely primary partition.

I tried to install Karmic with a separate /boot partition, but it
didn't work. Install couldn't manage to reboot and I guessed that it
didn't like this config. At this point, due to the failed install,
Jaunty had vanished as a boot option, but I had clear in mind the
procedures to recover it.

Then I tried a single primary /root partition (/home always shared),
but Karmic (cd daily current - 09/29) still didn't reboot.

Later I decided to try grub2 in Jaunty. Although grub2 install found
my kernels at (hd0,8) it defaulted them all to (hd0,0) (failed Karmic)
and even the new (chainloaded) menu.lst defaulted to (hd0,0), UUID and
all, and I found this last part weird. No working chainload means no
easy recovery besides LiveCD, root edit menu.lst etc., not exactly a
newbie dream.

As you noticed, although there are several bugs at Grub2, I found
little references to this at Karmic Bugs, were I usually check for my
future woes, so I decided to alert the community hoping I was not
crying wolf.

I found a relatively recent bug at
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/392836
**(high)**, posted a comment and asked nomination for Karmic. Of
course most users will distr. upgrade to Karmic and never face these
woes and those with multi boots are keen enough to deal with this, but
it may be annoying.

No, in fact I didn't Google before installing grub2 on Jaunty, maybe
headquarters should put a "beware" sign near it at Synaptic. And as
Karmic was a clean test install I also didn't  bother to check release
notes. Jaunty works so fine that I'm becoming careless.

Regards,

Lucio

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