Grub install tools?
Tuxedo
for Grub on Slackware 12.2, like liloconfig?
After installing two different Ubuntu based distros (MINT and ArtistX) on
different partitions and thereafter reinstalling LILO within Slackware and
targetting all relevant partitions, the non-Slackware distros won't boot,
only Slackware will boot correctly. The other distros have different
errors; ArtistX just hangs in the middle of various boot messages while
MINT won't boot into graphics mode.
Are there any GRUB install procedures within Slackware which may
autoconfigure the boot procedure better?
Thanks for any tips.
Tuxedo
Tuxedo
> I don't prefer GRUB over LILO but are there any simple (gui) install tools
> for Grub on Slackware 12.2, like liloconfig?
I found QGrubEditor at Slacky.eu and have it running after also installing
qt4. But this app looks even more complex than command line.... liloconfig
is much more user-friendly.
What are the commands for installing GRUB on MBR on a Slackware 12.2 when
my Slackware is on /dev/hda5 and another Linux distro is on on /dev/hda6,
and not to forget, Windows on /dev/hda4?
The other Linux distro(s), whether MINT or ArtistX, which are both Ubuntu
based, calls the path 'sda' as in /dev/sda6, but I'm not sure if that
should be reflected as such within the actual boot manager, Lilo or Grub.
uname -a of my system returns "Linux Tuxedo 2.6.27.7-smp #2 SMP ..."
Thanks,
Tuxedo
Daniel Castañeda Ruiz
distributions. I recommend installing ubuntu and mint's own bootloaders at
the beginning of their root partitions, and load them with lilo, with
lilo.conf looking something like this:
other=/dev/hda4
label=Windows
other=/dev/hda6
label=Mint
Tuxedo
After about five more installation tries of the second Linux distro
(ArtistX) both Slackware 12.2 and ArtistX 0.8 boots, but from a GRUB menu
which ArtistX dropped into MBR. (I have no idea what I did different...). I
would however prefer booting to be configured via LILO and installed via
Slackware, but I dare not touch the current set up in case it breaks the
ArtistX booting. That said, I now have a "working" boot procedure for
ArtistX on /dev/hda6 (or sda6?) and Slackware 12.2 on /dev/hda5, so I
should in theory be able to replicate the correct settings from some GRUB
config file. Where exactly should I look for the relevant boot options of
ArtistX and how could they be used in LILO for both systems to boot from
LILO? I trust LILO being the more reliable system start up procedure....
Tuxedo
By the way, I'm not using Mint. I just tested it too see if there was a
problem with the booting or something else relating to the specific ArtistX
installation. ArtistX is the one I use. Both are Ubuntu based.
As it turns out, it's definitely the boot installers that get confused.
I'm not sure if I fully understand what you mean? If selecting ArtistX,
would LILO basically redirect to GRUB on a non-Slackware boot option, while
if selecting Slackware on start up, one would boot straight into the
Slackware system on hda5?
So far I think the boot record is at MBR. The only relevant tool I could
find in the ArtistX system was 'remastersys Grub Restore', which I have
tested before but didn't make anything work better....
Thanks for the tips!
Tuxedo
Douglas Mayne
Caveat: I don't know of any gui tools for grub. IMO, none are required.
FWIW: I find grub to be a much more flexible bootloader than lilo. YMMV.
Its install method, using the "grub shell" provides a suitable and
sensible working environment when modifying these critical disk structures.
"gui-ifying" is not necessary.
A primary requirement is knowing a little bit about what you're doing when
"twiddling critical bits." IMO, time spent learning about the bootloader
will pay dividends later on. It looks like grub would be able to satisfy your
needs on your other thread: "usb boot media." That is, if you were willing to
invest a bit of time in "knowing what you're doing."
The first thing to remember about grub is that device numbering/nomenclature
begins with "0". C-style, I guess.
Installing the grub bootloader /* can be */ as simple as is shown below. In
my example below, I am using a combined boot/root partition, /dev/sda1. I will
inform grub to use files on /dev/sda1 to setup the bootloader on the MBR.
Also, be aware that grub's keyword, "root" is used to inform grub where it will
find /*its*/ own files; it is not necessarily the same as Slackware's root
partition. For example, the grub's root is different than Slackware's root
when using a separate boot partition. In the case below, they are the same.
Here is my example. Proceed at your own risk!
0. Begin working as the root user and install the grub package. Look in the
"extra" package group.
1. In the directory /boot, create a subdirectory ./grub.
# mkdir /boot/grub
2. Copy the necessary files from installed location. For whatever reason,
this is not done automatically.
# cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/* /boot/grub
3. Begin using grub shell in interactive mode. In the output below, I use
the "geometry" directive to make sure I am installing grub on the proper
target. Also, note that in the i/o below the shell prompt is shown as:
grub>
Here we go..
root@sl13:~# grub --no-floppy
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
<begin grub shell i/o>
GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)
[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename. ]
grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 38913/255/63, The number of sectors = 625140335, /dev/sda
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is xfs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 2, Filesystem type is xfs, partition type 0x83
grub> root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type is xfs, partition type 0x83
grub> setup (hd0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/xfs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/xfs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 21 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+21 p (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"
... succeeded
Done.
grub> quit
<end grub shell i/o>
root@sl13:~#
4. Create a boot menu, menu.lst. Use your favorite editor. Be aware that the
syntax is unforgiving. spaces between keywords are required!
# cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
<begin menu.lst content>
default=0
title Slackware 12.2 (+k2.6.30.10-smp)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30.10-smp-dm1 vga=ask max_loop=24 resume=/dev/sda2
initrd /boot/i-30.10.gz
<end menu.lst content>
End of my example.
IMO, here are the grub's main set of features which give it an
"edge" over lilo, and make it a very flexible bootloader:
1. It can be installed on any bootable media (cd-r, usb, floppy,
hard disk, etc.)
2. If there are problems booting due to the kernel not being found, etc.
then a working environment, the "grub shell" is presented. Commands
may be entered interactively from this enviroment. Useful commands
include configfile, root, kernel, initrd. These commands follow the
syntax required by menu.lst. When the same type of errors occur with
the lilo bootloader, then the recourse is to look for a rescue CD, as
you have already discovered.
Oh yeah, here is one more, YMMV.
--
Douglas Mayne
GangGreene
[putolin]
>
> After about five more installation tries of the second Linux distro
> (ArtistX) both Slackware 12.2 and ArtistX 0.8 boots, but from a GRUB menu
> which ArtistX dropped into MBR. (I have no idea what I did different...).
> I would however prefer booting to be configured via LILO and installed via
> Slackware, but I dare not touch the current set up in case it breaks the
> ArtistX booting. That said, I now have a "working" boot procedure for
> ArtistX on /dev/hda6 (or sda6?) and Slackware 12.2 on /dev/hda5, so I
> should in theory be able to replicate the correct settings from some GRUB
> config file. Where exactly should I look for the relevant boot options of
> ArtistX and how could they be used in LILO for both systems to boot from
> LILO? I trust LILO being the more reliable system start up procedure....
/boot/grub/menu.lst
Bit Twister
> The first thing to remember about grub is that device numbering/nomenclature
> begins with "0". C-style, I guess.
Gotta love progress.
GRUB is Legacy software.
All Hail GRUB2.
You will just love grub2. ;-/
The good news: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6981/1/
The bad news: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6981/2/
More information found at http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub.en.html
Mike Jones
OFCOL! Whats going on lately? Everything seems to be becoming insanely
(more) complex for no good reason! Is M$ planting spooks in Linux
development teams? %|
--
*=( http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/
*=( For all your UK news needs.
Bit Twister
> OFCOL! Whats going on lately? Everything seems to be becoming insanely
> (more) complex for no good reason! Is M$ planting spooks in Linux
> development teams? %|
I think so. Mandriva even added a Guest account not requiring a password.
Small sample of grief it caused https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=54710
Read these problem reports in Mandriva Linux
https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=57651
https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=56389
Latest change in KDE 4.4 now forces me to click the text in the
desktop shortcut icon to get a reliable launch. :(
Mike Jones
Is this the beginning of another "divergence" in the Linux multiverse?
"I can't believe its not Windows!" versus "Let them eat *NIX!"
Ubuntu have a lot to answer for IMO. ;)
Jerry Peters
want is for some crazy scripts to update my boot configuration; if
anything goes wrong I'll have to boot from USB (or CD on some older
laptops that don't boot from USB) to fix it. And I guess the new
"improved" grub probably makes that difficult too.
Jerry
Grant
>Responding to Bit Twister:
>
>> On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:41:08 +0000 (UTC), Douglas Mayne wrote:
>>
>>> The first thing to remember about grub is that device
>>> numbering/nomenclature begins with "0". C-style, I guess.
>>
>> Gotta love progress.
>>
>> GRUB is Legacy software.
>>
>> All Hail GRUB2.
>>
>> You will just love grub2. ;-/
Not if it still insists on using undefined disk space like first cylinder,
sectors 2..63. This single stupid notion stops me considering grub.
Besides, lilo works fine for me. Lilo is fine until one has >2TB drives
to boot. But in my mind, I'd rather the OS stay on a smaller disk, away
from such large, possibly RAID, data drives.
>>
>> The good news:
>> http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6981/1/ The bad news:
>> http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6981/2/
>>
>> More information found at http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub.en.html
>
>
>OFCOL! Whats going on lately? Everything seems to be becoming insanely
>(more) complex for no good reason! Is M$ planting spooks in Linux
>development teams? %|
It's the nature of the beast -- developers seem rarely to stay back with
a 'finished' project to iron out all the bugs.
Grant.
--
http://bugs.id.au/
Tuxedo
[...]
> /boot/grub/menu.lst
Thanks for the hint! it is where my current grub menu gets its options but
the file resides in the partition of my other ubuntu-like distro. Trying to
edit it from there is a bit hard, because the ubuntu installer didn't give
me a possibility to define a root password as far as I know and the file is
owned by root. Not a problem to edit it from within Slackware, and at least
I have a working bootloader now, wherever it is :-)
Tuxedo
Tuxedo
[...]
Thanks for the step-by-step guide. You are right that in spending enough
time learning it the right way would pay off.
After all, simply booting an operating system shouldn't be a complicated
affair. This isn't an issue in a single distro disk set up or in a typical
Linux plus one Windows partition install scenario, but appears that most
installation routines of popular distros are simply not geared up for the
idea of more than one Linux and Windows by any automated install procedures.
I will give your ideas a try as soon as I have time to dive into it!
Tuxedo
Mike Jones
[...]
>
>>> The good news:
>>> http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6981/1/ The bad news:
>>> http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6981/2/
>>>
>>> More information found at
>>> http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub.en.html
>>
>>
>>OFCOL! Whats going on lately? Everything seems to be becoming insanely
>>(more) complex for no good reason! Is M$ planting spooks in Linux
>>development teams? %|
>
> It's the nature of the beast -- developers seem rarely to stay back with
> a 'finished' project to iron out all the bugs.
>
I was going to mention the MC 4.1.X-MP project, but as the install of the
latest version just barfed over my HDD I'm not so sure about that either.
Maybe there is a season for this kind of thing?
GangGreene
That's why I have a separate boot partition.
All the setups are in one place.
All the OS boot from there.
One place to go it something doesn't boot.
All my filesystems on my computers are encrypted except for the boot
partition.
Three drives /dev/sda, /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc partitioned like this
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 9561 76798701 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 9562 9624 506047+ fd Linux raid
autodetect
/dev/sda3 9625 9687 506047+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda4 9688 60801 410573205 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 9688 10904 9775521 fd Linux raid
autodetect
/dev/sda6 10905 12121 9775521 fd Linux raid
autodetect
/dev/sda7 12122 60801 391022068+ fd Linux raid
autodetect
The /dev/sda2 /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdc2 is the boot partition(s) in a raid 1 array
the other raid arrays are raid 5.
I have 3 installs of WinXp one one each hard drive, ( you just really don't
know when windows is going to take a shit so I have two more just in case I
need them ), Slackware 12.2 and Slamd64 installed on the array. Thank god
for linux it just works!
You have to be careful not to allow an install to wipe out what is already
there.
What I do is to do the install without the separate boot partition mounted
so that the installer installs to the root filesystem/partition for that
install.
I first mount the boot partition to /mnt. Then I manually copy the files
from there (rsync is your friend) to my separate boot partition. Fix up
the /boot/grub/menu.lst and shazzam I good to go.
I never mount the separate boot partition in any of the /etc/fstab, keeps
the install from farting up a perfectly good menu.lst. Leaving the
computer non bootable. The boot partition doesn't need to be mounted after
the system in running.
Jerry Peters
> On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:42:06 GMT, Mike Jones <N...@Arizona.Bay> wrote:
>
>>Responding to Bit Twister:
>>
>>> On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:41:08 +0000 (UTC), Douglas Mayne wrote:
>>>
>>>> The first thing to remember about grub is that device
>>>> numbering/nomenclature begins with "0". C-style, I guess.
>>>
>>> Gotta love progress.
>>>
>>> GRUB is Legacy software.
>>>
>>> All Hail GRUB2.
>>>
>>> You will just love grub2. ;-/
>
> Not if it still insists on using undefined disk space like first cylinder,
> sectors 2..63. This single stupid notion stops me considering grub.
Why? Might as well put the disk space to some use.
>
> Besides, lilo works fine for me. Lilo is fine until one has >2TB drives
> to boot. But in my mind, I'd rather the OS stay on a smaller disk, away
> from such large, possibly RAID, data drives.
Except if anything goes wrong, with lilo you're screwed. With grub I
can at least try to find something that will boot, or edit the kernel
command line. It's saved me from having to boot my rescue system
several times.
Jerry
James Woodard
Ubuntu doesn't think users are smart enough to have access to root
privileges. Instead, it adds the first user to the sudoers list.
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
password:(first users password)
To change this behavior,
sudo passwd root
will create a root password. Thus allowing you to screw up your machine
anyway you please.
Auric__
> Ubuntu doesn't think users are smart enough to have access to root
> privileges.
Of course, for the vast majority of people, it's right.
--
I'll survive.
John F. Morse
Exactly!
Remember that Micr0$lut gave all Windoze users "root" access, and now
what do you have?
A zillion bots spamming and sending out their own viruses, Trojans,
adware, malware, DDOS, ....
Ubuntu attracts many Win-droids -- just read a.o.l.ubuntu. These people
need someone or something to "protect" the rest of us.
--
John
When a person has -- whether they knew it or not -- already rejected the Truth, by what means do they discern a lie?