How do I know which grub version is used and how to configure it?

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 2024-12-18 at 15:24 +0100, Bo Berglund wrote:
> [snip] I assume that I will be able during that installation to limit
> the size of the partition it will create on the drive and also that
> the installer will create the necessary EFI/UEFI data on the disk for
> grub to work in a multi-boot environment. I basically want to have the
> drive initialized for multi-boot using UEFI and to install Ubuntu
> desktop on a limited size partition, say 30 GB or so.

Hi,

yes you can do the partitioning using the installer, but I recommend to
do it already before, without the installer, but with gparted.

Yes, the installer automatically adds all those terrible EFI things.

> Can one select the desktop type during install? In that case I want a
> basic GNOME type desktop. Or else Cinnamon.

Yesno or depends. However, just use Ubuntu Cinnamon,
https://ubuntu.com/desktop/flavours for Cinnamon or Ubuntu for "a
modified version of the GNOME desktop environment".

Please check the downloaded ISO against the _signed_ checksum:
https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/how-to-verify-ubuntu#1-overview

> Can the desktop type be changed later on?

Yes! You can also use the server image and start without a WM/DE at all
and then add what you want. But since you are asking this question I
recommend to start with Ubuntu Cinnamon or Ubuntu, so that you get at
least one DE out of the box.

> 2) Next, after starting Ubuntu Desktop I want to copy the partitions
> holding my newly upgraded Ubuntu Server [snip]

sudo cp -Tai /path/source_mountpoint/ /path/destination_mountpoint/

> After this the drive should contain 2 Ubuntu systems both at 24.04.1
> level:
> - the newly installed desktop
> - the copied server from the now running machine
> 
> QUESTION:
> ---------
> How do I make the copied server visible on the boot menu?
> It has settings on fstab [snip]

I'll leave that to someone else. I make it manually, without any GRUB
automation involved. Regarding (GRUB and) fstab (yes, I'm still in
favour of fstab) I recommend to use labels, e.g.

LABEL=foo     /    ext4   rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1

On my machine the order of sda, sdb etc. is consistent, but the order of
nvme0n1 and nvme1n1 might change with each boot.

Regards,
Ralf