grub2

Bill Cunningham

unread,

Feb 8, 2012, 5:33:08 PM2/8/12

to

Does anyone know how to reinstall the grub2 bootloader once it's been
removed from the mbr? I use window's fixmbr to remove it but I would like to
reinstall it. The old grub used setup to reinstall.

Bill

Richard Kettlewell

unread,

Feb 8, 2012, 5:37:05 PM2/8/12

to

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Installing-GRUB-using-grub_002dinstall.html

--
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

crankypuss

unread,

Feb 9, 2012, 5:54:13 AM2/9/12

to

grub-customizer has a menu item to install in the MBR. Not sure if
that's what you need or not.

Bill Cunningham

unread,

Feb 9, 2012, 10:39:40 PM2/9/12

to

crankypuss wrote:

> grub-customizer has a menu item to install in the MBR. Not sure if
> that's what you need or not.

Hum. Never heard of grub-customizer. If it puts a copy of grub back into
the mbr that's what I'm looking for.

Bill

J.O. Aho

unread,

Feb 10, 2012, 12:44:52 AM2/10/12

to

grub2-install --no-floppy /dev/sda

or

grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda

depends on if your distributions make a difference between legacy grub and grub 2.

--

//Aho

crankypuss

unread,

Feb 10, 2012, 5:00:21 AM2/10/12

to

Google it. It ain't perfect but it ain't bad either. If you need help
getting it installed after you've researched it, I have some notes
around here someplace.

Dan C

unread,

Feb 10, 2012, 8:44:55 AM2/10/12

to

Who wipes your ass for you when you go poo-poo?

Maybe they will tell you.

--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".
"Bother!" said Pooh, as he struggled with the condom.
Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/
Thanks, Obama: http://brandybuck.site40.net/pics/politica/thanks.jpg

J G Miller

unread,

Feb 10, 2012, 9:08:09 PM2/10/12

to

On Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 06:44:52h +0100, J.O. Aho wrote:

> depends on if your distributions make a difference between legacy grub
> and grub 2.

And under Debian it is also a good idea to run update-grub2 just to be
certain that the grub.cfg file is recreated with the correct values.

Having very recently done a grub re-install, I learnt that when grub
is invoked in the boot up process (and as specified in the grub.cfg
file) it needs access to /usr/share. So /usr/share has to be available
and also if on a separate file system, it needs the correct UUID in
grub.cfg, which is important to remember if one has been shuffling disks.

Did legacy grub require /usr/share? I think not. Another case of
creeping featurism adding complicating dependencies.

And on the subject of dependencies, especially stupid ones,
if you want to install mdadm on Debian/Mint/Ubuntu in order
to manage raid filesystems, it requires the installation of
an MTA, postfix by default. Just how crazy is that?

John Hasler

unread,

Feb 10, 2012, 10:07:56 PM2/10/12

to

J G Miller writes:
> And on the subject of dependencies, especially stupid ones, if you
> want to install mdadm on Debian/Mint/Ubuntu in order to manage raid

> filesystems, it requires the installation of an MTA...

In Debian mdadm does not depend on "default-mta | mail-transport-agent".
It merely recommends it.

> ...postfix by default.

Last I knew Exim4 was still the default on Debian.

BTW Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint are three _different_ distributions.

--
John Hasler
jha...@newsguy.com
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

J.O. Aho

unread,

Feb 11, 2012, 7:07:01 AM2/11/12

to

J G Miller wrote:
> On Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 06:44:52h +0100, J.O. Aho wrote:
>
>> depends on if your distributions make a difference between legacy grub
>> and grub 2.
>
> And under Debian it is also a good idea to run update-grub2 just to be
> certain that the grub.cfg file is recreated with the correct values.

In this case I wouldn't recommend it, as it's not sure the OP will have
everything correctly mounted when running the command, which could make some
files not accessible and make the install to fail.

> Having very recently done a grub re-install, I learnt that when grub
> is invoked in the boot up process (and as specified in the grub.cfg
> file) it needs access to /usr/share. So /usr/share has to be available
> and also if on a separate file system, it needs the correct UUID in
> grub.cfg, which is important to remember if one has been shuffling disks.

This is due a bad choice to install the theme wallpapers in
/usr/share/images/ but you can always modify the theme configuration to look
at it in the /boot slice instead, but then you need to see that your /boot
slice is big enough to hold the images too.

I think the grub2 project has been too influenced by Redhat who has decided
it's time to assume that /usr will be accessible at boot time.

> Did legacy grub require /usr/share? I think not. Another case of
> creeping featurism adding complicating dependencies.

Unless you specified that the splash image was located on /usr/share/images,
which you could specify.

> And on the subject of dependencies, especially stupid ones,
> if you want to install mdadm on Debian/Mint/Ubuntu in order
> to manage raid filesystems, it requires the installation of
> an MTA, postfix by default. Just how crazy is that?

I don't use debian based distributions, specially not *buntu.
If you want some dependency hell, take a look at glibc in RedHat based
distributions, it depends on gd, which in it's turn depends on X Windows
System (not the whole, but core parts).
It was a bit difficult when I was upgrading my RedHat 7.3 (the last good
version of community RedHat) with a up to date glibc, kernel 2.6 and libgnome2
(that was even more hellish, took me quite a lot of time and help from one of
the gnome2 developers to build things in the right order and many packages had
to be rebuilt after another package had been installed, to get all the
features needed).

I feel better with a distribution where I can choose which dependencies I want
to have, there are a few Source Mage for those of you who like debian, Gentoo
for the rest (LFS isn't a distribution, just an instruction how to build your
own installation).

--

//Aho

J G Miller

unread,

Feb 11, 2012, 8:59:18 AM2/11/12

to

On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:07:56 -0600, John Hasler wrote:

> BTW Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint are three _different_ distributions.

Yes, my mistake, I should have written Mint/Ubuntu and not included Debian,
but I had assumed that since the Mint/Ubuntu packages were derived from
the Debian packages, the dependendcies were the same.

John Hasler

unread,

Feb 11, 2012, 9:38:14 AM2/11/12

to

J G Miller writes:
> I had assumed that since the Mint/Ubuntu packages were derived from
> the Debian packages, the dependendcies were the same.

I don't know much about Mint but there are many substantial differences
between Debian and Unbuntu. Many packages in Ubuntu are not derived
from Debian packages and many that are have been drastically altered.

J G Miller

unread,

Feb 11, 2012, 10:31:07 AM2/11/12

to

On Saturday, February 11th, 2012, at 08:38:14h -0600, John Hasler wrote:

> J G Miller writes:
>> I had assumed that since the Mint/Ubuntu packages were derived from the
>> Debian packages, the dependendcies were the same.
>
> I don't know much about Mint but there are many substantial differences
> between Debian and Unbuntu.

Linux Mint, up to version 12 or so, is Ubuntu plus a number of
theme customization packages, administration tools, and restricted
packages (codecs, firefox, flash etc).

With Ubuntu going to Unity and Wayland, there is an increasing
divergence on some of the desktop packages as Linux Mint has opted
for the Gnome 3 desktop with a number of custom Mint features.

There is also Linux Mint Debian Edition which is Debian unstable
plus a number of Mint administration and theme customization packages
plus the restricted packages.

> Many packages in Ubuntu are not derived from Debian packages and
> many that are have been drastically altered.

However Ubuntu has for most releases been mostly the development of a
snapshot of Debian testing (for LTS) or Debian sid.