os-prober detects in wrong order and GRUB doesn't have enough options

[David Chmelik]

Earlier this or last year I tried to use Devuan to report os-prober
detects in wrong order. It may detect current OS partition first, but if
you have more than 10, then it continues from 10, and (if this is all you
have) goes to the last in the tens but then continues somewhere in single-
digit partitions, so then puts your OS all in wrong order in GRUB2, which
should have more options about menu order like is easy to configure LILO
exactly the way you want. I have some entries I wrote myself, because
even after a bug report over 10 years ago, os-prober didn't detect FreeBSD
& NetBSD (reported) & DragonFlyBSD UNIXes, nor OpenSolaris/IllumOS UNIXes,
nor does GRUB2 do some GNU/Linux right like SystemRescue and some obscure
boot options some RedHat variants need or won't boot. Seems like the bug
maybe didn't get reported to the os-prober programmers. Did it not get
through or is there another way I could report this?

[Marco Moock]

Am 31.01.2024 schrieb David Chmelik <dchm...@gmail.com>:

> Earlier this or last year I tried to use Devuan to report os-prober
> detects in wrong order. It may detect current OS partition first,
> but if you have more than 10, then it continues from 10, and (if this
> is all you have) goes to the last in the tens but then continues
> somewhere in single- digit partitions, so then puts your OS all in
> wrong order in GRUB2, which should have more options about menu order
> like is easy to configure LILO exactly the way you want.

Does you system support UEFI boot?
If so, you can use the boot manager of the UEFI to boot the desired
operating system and don't need os-prober at all.

[David Chmelik]

On Thu, 1 Feb 2024 11:43:25 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:
> Am 31.01.2024 schrieb David Chmelik <dchm...@gmail.com>:
>
>> Earlier this or last year I tried to use Devuan to report os-prober
>> detects in wrong order. It may detect current OS partition first, but
>> if you have more than 10, then it continues from 10, and (if this is
>> all you have) goes to the last in the tens but then continues somewhere
>> in single- digit partitions, so then puts your OS all in wrong order in
>> GRUB2, which should have more options about menu order like is easy to
>> configure LILO exactly the way you want.
>
> Does you system support UEFI boot?

I don't use that.

[Marco Moock]

You should think about using it, it maybe makes your situation much
easier because a boot manager of one operating system doesn't need to
care about other operating systems installed, because they can be
booted independently via the UEFI boot mechanism.

--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to muel...@cartoonies.org

[David Chmelik]

On Sat, 3 Feb 2024 12:44:35 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:

> On 02.02.2024 um 04:35 Uhr David Chmelik wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 1 Feb 2024 11:43:25 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:
>> > Does you system support UEFI boot?
>> I don't use that.
>
> You should think about using it, it maybe makes your situation much
> easier because a boot manager of one operating system doesn't need to
> care about other operating systems installed, because they can be booted
> independently via the UEFI boot mechanism.

I don't think so: UEFI has many its own problems (despite might make some
things easier). I'll wait for replies on the original topic.

[David Chmelik]

On Sat, 3 Feb 2024 12:44:35 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:

> On 02.02.2024 um 04:35 Uhr David Chmelik wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 1 Feb 2024 11:43:25 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:
>> > Does you system support UEFI boot?
>> I don't use that.
>
> You should think about using it, it maybe makes your situation much
> easier because a boot manager of one operating system doesn't need to
> care about other operating systems installed, because they can be booted
> independently via the UEFI boot mechanism.

[David Chmelik]

On Sat, 3 Feb 2024 12:44:35 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:

> On 02.02.2024 um 04:35 Uhr David Chmelik wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 1 Feb 2024 11:43:25 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:
>> > Does you system support UEFI boot?
>> I don't use that.
>
> You should think about using it, it maybe makes your situation much
> easier because a boot manager of one operating system doesn't need to
> care about other operating systems installed, because they can be booted
> independently via the UEFI boot mechanism.

[bad sector]

On 2/3/24 06:44, Marco Moock wrote:
> On 02.02.2024 um 04:35 Uhr David Chmelik wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 1 Feb 2024 11:43:25 +0100, Marco Moock wrote:
>>> Does you system support UEFI boot?
>> I don't use that.
>
>
> You should think about using it, it maybe makes your situation much
> easier because a boot manager of one operating system doesn't need to
> care about other operating systems installed, because they can be
> booted independently via the UEFI boot mechanism.

what if you hardware (like my desktop) has no uefi but is Bios Legacy
only? Or you might disklike uefi enough to not want it on your street.

[bad sector]

You say the problem is os-prober, but is it? I let my suse system do
the boot setup and I have yet to see partition 2 ever listed before 11
(because 2 is not sorted as 02). Not only that but the system from which
the run is executed always ends up with no mention of the partition
number at all so when you have two systems like suse-slowroll and
suse-tumbleweed both of which use the tumbleweed base then you have no
idea what you are booting unless you know which partition one of thenm
is on. The net has been lousy with requests for grub2 to provide some
facility to offer control over the menu look and feel the way that
grub-legacy did. There's even a 'grub-customizer' out there because of
the demand (tried it, not impressed).

Is Lilo capable of dealing with GPT and large disks? I'm honestly
thinking of switching!