Background: I've got a machine with mucked up dual boot from attempting to get full install on a USB from a Ubuntu 10.10 live cd. GRUB2 ended up on my hard drive, all else on USB stick. Got confusing and confused(responder didn't pay attention to differences between Legacy Grub and Grub2) responses on their forum to either removing Grub or forcing it to only attempt to boot from the only OS existing on the hard drive (WinXP Pro SP3 - it will leave eventually).
Needed: Carnal knowledge of boot process and first "n" sectors of drive:
Question: Any pointer to good site covering all? Google leads to various pages covering subjects individually and written by different authors at different times with differing audiences in mind.
The only general stuff I have at moment are pdf's of Slackbasics and Slackbook-2.0.
Between them I've some 50 pages of tangential material to absorb or refresh. I date from era when one sat in front of your 11/45 and loaded ~20 instructions from front panel to read paper tape via TTY which allowed you to load OS from "high speed"(LOL) reader.
On Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:36:19 -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
> Background: I've got a machine with mucked up dual boot from attempting
> to get full install on a USB from a Ubuntu 10.10 live cd. GRUB2 ended up
> on my hard drive, all else on USB stick. Got confusing and
> confused(responder didn't pay attention to differences between Legacy
> Grub and Grub2) responses on their forum to either removing Grub or
> forcing it to only attempt to boot from the only OS existing on the hard
> drive (WinXP Pro SP3 - it will leave eventually).
> Needed: Carnal knowledge of boot process and first "n" sectors of drive:
> Question: Any pointer to good site covering all? Google leads to various
> pages covering subjects individually and written by different authors at
> different times with differing audiences in mind.
> The only general stuff I have at moment are pdf's of Slackbasics and
> Slackbook-2.0.
> Between them I've some 50 pages of tangential material to absorb or
> refresh. I date from era when one sat in front of your 11/45 and loaded
> ~20 instructions from front panel to read paper tape via TTY which
> allowed you to load OS from "high speed"(LOL) reader.
> TIA
I am a grub user, but I am sticking with version 0.97 until forced to switch. I'll probably have to learn about the next generation loaders when EFI/GUID capable loaders. I think grub legacy was/is the most flexible loader when not requiring those features. Slackware is mostly in the lilo camp, but grub is available in the "extra" series. I used to advocate quite often for grub and for learning what the "setup" programs do "behind your back." That requires understanding basic disk structures (partition tables, boot sectors, layout, etc.). Theory only goes so far, and at some point you'll need to experiment. Experimenting can be dangerous, so be careful and/or have a system that is "expendable."
On Monday 06 February 2012 17:41, Douglas Mayne conveyed the following to alt.os.linux.slackware...
> I am a grub user, but I am sticking with version 0.97 until forced to
> switch. I'll probably have to learn about the next generation loaders
> when EFI/GUID capable loaders. [...]
As I understand it, grub-legacy /should/ be able to handle GUID partition tables.
EFI is another beast altogether because with an EFI, the processor is already in protected mode - and the other processor cores are also initialized and in protected mode - before it loads the bootloader. So that requires a special version of GRUB. ELILO is the EFI equivalent of LILO.
-- = Aragorn =
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
Douglas Mayne wrote:
> On Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:36:19 -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
>> Background: I've got a machine with mucked up dual boot from attempting
>> to get full install on a USB from a Ubuntu 10.10 live cd. GRUB2 ended up
>> on my hard drive, all else on USB stick. Got confusing and
>> confused(responder didn't pay attention to differences between Legacy
>> Grub and Grub2) responses on their forum to either removing Grub or
>> forcing it to only attempt to boot from the only OS existing on the hard
>> drive (WinXP Pro SP3 - it will leave eventually).
>> Needed: Carnal knowledge of boot process and first "n" sectors of drive:
>> Question: Any pointer to good site covering all? Google leads to various
>> pages covering subjects individually and written by different authors at
>> different times with differing audiences in mind.
>> The only general stuff I have at moment are pdf's of Slackbasics and
>> Slackbook-2.0.
>> Between them I've some 50 pages of tangential material to absorb or
>> refresh. I date from era when one sat in front of your 11/45 and loaded
>> ~20 instructions from front panel to read paper tape via TTY which
>> allowed you to load OS from "high speed"(LOL) reader.
>> TIA
> I am a grub user, but I am sticking with version 0.97 until forced to
> switch. I'll probably have to learn about the next generation loaders
> when EFI/GUID capable loaders. I think grub legacy was/is the most
> flexible loader when not requiring those features. Slackware is mostly in
> the lilo camp, but grub is available in the "extra" series. I used to
> advocate quite often for grub and for learning what the "setup" programs
> do "behind your back." That requires understanding basic disk structures
> (partition tables, boot sectors, layout, etc.). Theory only goes so far,
> and at some point you'll need to experiment. Experimenting can be
> dangerous, so be careful and/or have a system that is "expendable."
In a lot of ways we agree. It's taken almost fifty years, but I'm agreeing more with my professors that more theory is good theory.
I _was_ experimenting ;/
I thought safely by installing to a removable device. It wasn't.
Now I need more theory to recover from not fully knowing what details were hidden behind the scenes. I've come across Linux tools promising to modify, repair, or remove faulty GRUB installs. But they hide to many details to make me comfortable.
I gather from the sparse replies to my post that there is nothing covering the breadth I indicated. I'll have to narrow my research to GNU GRUB 1.98 and MS Windows' use of the MBR.
I have two immediate goals:
PREFERRED - remove all of GRUB and restore former booting
ALTERNATE - modify the GRUB install so it only attempts to launch OS
existing on the hard drive (WinXP Pro at the moment)
Achieving either will then allow a proper dual boot Linux install - most likely Slackware or a derivative.
On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:36:53 -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
> Douglas Mayne wrote:
>> On Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:36:19 -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
>>> Background: I've got a machine with mucked up dual boot from
>>> attempting to get full install on a USB from a Ubuntu 10.10 live cd.
>>> GRUB2 ended up on my hard drive, all else on USB stick. Got confusing
>>> and confused(responder didn't pay attention to differences between
>>> Legacy Grub and Grub2) responses on their forum to either removing
>>> Grub or forcing it to only attempt to boot from the only OS existing
>>> on the hard drive (WinXP Pro SP3 - it will leave eventually).
>>> Needed: Carnal knowledge of boot process and first "n" sectors of
>>> drive:
>>> Question: Any pointer to good site covering all? Google leads to
>>> various pages covering subjects individually and written by different
>>> authors at different times with differing audiences in mind.
>>> The only general stuff I have at moment are pdf's of Slackbasics and
>>> Slackbook-2.0.
>>> Between them I've some 50 pages of tangential material to absorb or
>>> refresh. I date from era when one sat in front of your 11/45 and
>>> loaded ~20 instructions from front panel to read paper tape via TTY
>>> which allowed you to load OS from "high speed"(LOL) reader.
>>> TIA
>> I am a grub user, but I am sticking with version 0.97 until forced to
>> switch. I'll probably have to learn about the next generation loaders
>> when EFI/GUID capable loaders. I think grub legacy was/is the most
>> flexible loader when not requiring those features. Slackware is mostly
>> in the lilo camp, but grub is available in the "extra" series. I used
>> to advocate quite often for grub and for learning what the "setup"
>> programs do "behind your back." That requires understanding basic disk
>> structures (partition tables, boot sectors, layout, etc.). Theory only
>> goes so far, and at some point you'll need to experiment. Experimenting
>> can be dangerous, so be careful and/or have a system that is
>> "expendable."
> In a lot of ways we agree. It's taken almost fifty years, but I'm
> agreeing more with my professors that more theory is good theory.
> I _was_ experimenting ;/
> I thought safely by installing to a removable device. It wasn't. Now I
> need more theory to recover from not fully knowing what details were
> hidden behind the scenes. I've come across Linux tools promising to
> modify, repair, or remove faulty GRUB installs. But they hide to many
> details to make me comfortable.
> I gather from the sparse replies to my post that there is nothing
> covering the breadth I indicated. I'll have to narrow my research to GNU
> GRUB 1.98 and MS Windows' use of the MBR.
> I have two immediate goals:
> PREFERRED - remove all of GRUB and restore former booting ALTERNATE > - modify the GRUB install so it only attempts
> to launch OS
> existing on the hard drive (WinXP Pro at the
> moment)
> Achieving either will then allow a proper dual boot Linux install - most
> likely Slackware or a derivative.
One thing I really like about grub is the interactive command line shell. The parameters can be entered on the fly, for example to initialize the startup of a specific kernel. It can even work in a generic boot sense to boot and then dynamically and interactively look for the kernel and initrd. I have a generic boot cd image online that can be used for that purpose. I haven't written much about bootstrapping lately, but at one point I wrote about it about every other day. ;) Apologies if some information is slightly out of date. These tools have remained consistent enough during the last few years that the syntax works as it did before. Unfortunately, the new version of grub abandoned (or changed) some meanings/definitions. The following is what I have on v0.97.
Douglas Mayne wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:36:53 -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
>> Douglas Mayne wrote:
>>> On Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:36:19 -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
>>>> Background: I've got a machine with mucked up dual boot from
>>>> attempting to get full install on a USB from a Ubuntu 10.10 live cd.
>>>> GRUB2 ended up on my hard drive, all else on USB stick. Got confusing
>>>> and confused(responder didn't pay attention to differences between
>>>> Legacy Grub and Grub2) responses on their forum to either removing
>>>> Grub or forcing it to only attempt to boot from the only OS existing
>>>> on the hard drive (WinXP Pro SP3 - it will leave eventually).
>>>> Needed: Carnal knowledge of boot process and first "n" sectors of
>>>> drive:
>>>> Question: Any pointer to good site covering all? Google leads to
>>>> various pages covering subjects individually and written by different
>>>> authors at different times with differing audiences in mind.
>>>> The only general stuff I have at moment are pdf's of Slackbasics and
>>>> Slackbook-2.0.
>>>> Between them I've some 50 pages of tangential material to absorb or
>>>> refresh. I date from era when one sat in front of your 11/45 and
>>>> loaded ~20 instructions from front panel to read paper tape via TTY
>>>> which allowed you to load OS from "high speed"(LOL) reader.
>>>> TIA
>>> I am a grub user, but I am sticking with version 0.97 until forced to
>>> switch. I'll probably have to learn about the next generation loaders
>>> when EFI/GUID capable loaders. I think grub legacy was/is the most
>>> flexible loader when not requiring those features. Slackware is mostly
>>> in the lilo camp, but grub is available in the "extra" series. I used
>>> to advocate quite often for grub and for learning what the "setup"
>>> programs do "behind your back." That requires understanding basic disk
>>> structures (partition tables, boot sectors, layout, etc.). Theory only
>>> goes so far, and at some point you'll need to experiment. Experimenting
>>> can be dangerous, so be careful and/or have a system that is
>>> "expendable."
>> In a lot of ways we agree. It's taken almost fifty years, but I'm
>> agreeing more with my professors that more theory is good theory.
>> I _was_ experimenting ;/
>> I thought safely by installing to a removable device. It wasn't. Now I
>> need more theory to recover from not fully knowing what details were
>> hidden behind the scenes. I've come across Linux tools promising to
>> modify, repair, or remove faulty GRUB installs. But they hide to many
>> details to make me comfortable.
>> I gather from the sparse replies to my post that there is nothing
>> covering the breadth I indicated. I'll have to narrow my research to GNU
>> GRUB 1.98 and MS Windows' use of the MBR.
>> I have two immediate goals:
>> PREFERRED - remove all of GRUB and restore former booting ALTERNATE
>> - modify the GRUB install so it only attempts
>> to launch OS
>> existing on the hard drive (WinXP Pro at the
>> moment)
>> Achieving either will then allow a proper dual boot Linux install - most
>> likely Slackware or a derivative.
> One thing I really like about grub is the interactive command line shell.
> The parameters can be entered on the fly, for example to initialize the
> startup of a specific kernel. It can even work in a generic boot sense to
> boot and then dynamically and interactively look for the kernel and
> initrd. I have a generic boot cd image online that can be used for that
> purpose. I haven't written much about bootstrapping lately, but at one
> point I wrote about it about every other day. ;) Apologies if some
> information is slightly out of date. These tools have remained consistent
> enough during the last few years that the syntax works as it did before.
> Unfortunately, the new version of grub abandoned (or changed) some
> meanings/definitions. The following is what I have on v0.97.
The above post addresses a problem I do not have.
OK, already. I may "have it", but it's not the aspect that bothers me.
I've "GRUB 2" - *NOT* "GRUB LEGACY" on my hard drive.
It's default OS (Ubuntu 10.10) resides on a USB stick.
If the USB stick is plugged in, there is not a disastrous failure.
I get a menu defaulting to inappropriate OS but allowing selection of acceptable OS.
!!! *BUT* !!! if USB stick not plugged in, I get UNACCEPTABLE response.
GRUB goes CLI.
I NEED OS on hard drive to boot if USB stick missing.
BTW - what's my attraction to Slackware? It requires willingness to address/understand internals.
