Adding kernel parameters to _other_ OS in grub

[Dotan Cohen]

On 26 May 2010 08:20, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Point taken regarding separate installs for GNOME and KDE although it
> would be generous to say that only 10% of users need such clean
> installs.
>

In any case, there are other good reasons for maintaining a dual-boot
system, and wishing to keep each system's kernels up to date.


> I didn't see the first post in this thread because Dotan's emails go
> straight to trash and I wouldn't have posted had I known that it was
> his query.
>

I've been killfiled! I wonder why, of all the people that I've argued
with over the years, I don't remember every arguing with Tom.


> Let's assume that you have Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, and Xubuntu
> installed on (hd0,1), (hd0,6), (hd0,7), (hd0,8) respectively and that
> it is Ubuntu's grub that controls the boot process.
>
> You would have:
>
> $ cat 40_...
> #!/bin/sh
> cat <<EOF
> menuentry "Kubuntu configfile" {
> configfile (hd0,6)/boot/grub/grub.cfg
> }
> menuentry "Lubuntu configfile" {
> configfile (hd0,7)/boot/grub/grub.cfg
> }
> menuentry "Xubuntu configfile" {
> configfile (hd0,8)/boot/grub/grub.cfg
> }
>
> I would hardly call this difficult.
>

No, it's not difficult. It actually looks like the "right way"
assuming that the currently booted distro (freshly updated) does not
control grub and cannot write to the "main" grub.cfg file.

However, in a perfect world each bootable installed distro would in
fact be able to update the main grub.cfg file. Can that be the case if
/boot is on a separate partition?


> Furthermore, assume that you are in the Lubuntu install and the kernel
> is updated. With the configfile setup above, if you reboot, you can
> boot from the new kernel immediately (assuming that update-grub ran
> after the kernel update). Without this setup, unless you press "e" or
> "c" at the grub menu and boot manually from the new kernel, you have
> to boot into the Ubuntu install and run update-grub for the grub menu
> to display the updated Lubuntu kernel as an option.
>

Exactly.


-- 
Dotan Cohen

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http://what-is-what.com