Ubuntu 9.10 & Grub2

[Dies]

Originally Posted by Gödel

I notice Dies didn't answer the question (where is the grub2 shell after boot?), the answer is there isn't one, I think he's confused about the new rescue mode, and quite a few things beside.

Yup, probably just a figment of my overactive imagination...

[Gödel]

Hmm, that looks suspiciously like 'qemu --curses'

Back to the more constructive discussion, Grub2 tries its best to make sense of Fedora's default installation with /boot + lvm partitions, but makes a hash of it, I had to manually edit it:

I changed
set root=(VolGroup-lv_root)
to
set root=(hd0,1)

and deleted the (long) search line, and removed '/boot' from the start of the vmlinuz and initrd paths

It even fails to set memtest86+ up correctly, I had to manually do 'set root=(hd0,6)' to point to the /boot partition on sda6.

So, pretty impressed so far

[Dies]

Originally Posted by Gödel

Hmm, that looks suspiciously like 'qemu --curses'

Yeah, I guess that would be easier than just running grub-emu, which by the way I mentioned a few posts ago...

You'll forgive me if I don't take your posts seriously from here on out.

[Gödel]

Oh you mean grub-emu that isn't included in the ubuntu grub packages do you? I assume it's a buggy and not particularly useful app that attempts to replace the truly useful grub legacy shell, which, for example, allows you to reinstall grub with the find and setup commands. Does grub-emu allow you to do anything useful? I doubt it, you'd be better off running the real grub2 shell from within qemu.

Since it's not included in Ubuntu's grub2 packages, it doesn't count, as far as most users experience of grub2 goes, there is no shell after boot.

Grub2 has potential, but it's gonna cause a lot of headaches in its current state.

[troyatlarge]

Hey - a little off topic, but here is the well ordered and well running grub/menu.lst from the Fedora grub for my multi-OS computer. I don't have all OS's loaded yet thanks to not enough hours in the day but its enough to show off the elegance of grub menu as I see it.

#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu

#0
title Fedora (2.6.30.9-90.fc11.i586)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.30.9-90.fc11.i586 ro root=UUID=d927e842-e0ba-44b9-b2b1-0d1a9f099e1b rhgb quiet
	initrd /initrd-2.6.30.9-90.fc11.i586.img

title Fedora (2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586 ro root=UUID=d927e842-e0ba-44b9-b2b1-0d1a9f099e1b rhgb quiet
	initrd /initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img

#1
title VectorLinux
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
chainloader +1

#2
title Puppy
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader +1

#3
title PCLinuxOS
rootnoverify (hd0,6)
chainloader +1

#4
title AntiX
rootnoverify (hd0,7)
chainloader +1

#5
title Mandriva
rootnoverify (hd0,8)
chainloader +1

#6
#title Fedora
#set to /boot on sda

How would this same thing be written in the new grub?

[Dies]

This is how I would translate manually.

Keep in mind that there may be mistakes on my part, or things that need to be tweaked.

#boot=/dev/sda
set default=0
set timeout=5

# grub2 can display background images but the format is different
# splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

see http://grub.gibibit.com/ for details

# hiddenmenu is gone, but you can hide the menu with a small script
# hiddenmenu

see http://grub.enbug.org/Hiddenmenu for details


#0
menuentry "Fedora (2.6.30.9-90.fc11.i586)" {
    insmod ext2
    search -n -s --fs-uuid d927e842-e0ba-44b9-b2b1-0d1a9f099e1b
    linux /vmlinuz-2.6.30.9-90.fc11.i586 ro root=UUID=d927e842-e0ba-44b9-b2b1-0d1a9f099e1b rhgb quiet
    initrd /initrd-2.6.30.9-90.fc11.i586.img
}

menuentry "Fedora (2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586)" {
    insmod ext2
    search -n -s --fs-uuid d927e842-e0ba-44b9-b2b1-0d1a9f099e1b
    linux /vmlinuz-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586 ro root=UUID=d927e842-e0ba-44b9-b2b1-0d1a9f099e1b rhgb quiet
    initrd /initrd-2.6.29.4-167.fc11.i586.img
}

#1
menuentry "VectorLinux" {
    set root=(hd0,5)
    chainloader +1
}

#2
menuentry "Puppy" {
    set root=(hd0,6)
    chainloader +1
}

#3
menuentry "PCLinuxOS" {
    set root=(hd0,7)
    chainloader +1
}

#4
menuentry "AntiX"{
    set root=(hd0,8)
    chainloader +1
}

#5
menuentry "Mandriva" {
    set root=(hd0,9)
    chainloader +1
}

#6
#menuentry "Fedora"
#set to /boot on sda

If you use LVM, not sure searching for uuid, label or anything else will work? you can just use 'set root=something' if it doesn't.

BUT the whole idea behind grub2 is that once it's ready, you won't ever have to type all this out or use a crutch like installing copies of grub everywhere.

btw, heard of VirtualBox?

[troyatlarge]

Here I was all excited about running many operating systems just so I could learn grub in actual live practice - lol - but by the time I get to it grub 2 is out!! Go figure!

The looks of the script you gave is not as clean as the old script, but sounds like there are advantages which go over and above that.

I did run across one issue while loading OS's. So systems loaded and had no option about flashing the MBR with the new installed grub, they simply do it - thus instead of booting from the boot partition, it boots up from, say sda7. When that happens I have a need to re-flash the MBR with the grub on the boot partition (the one shown above) - how does one do that? (I still have several distros to load and figure its bound to come up).

Last, I have not heard of a VirtualBox - what exactly is thier advantage?

[Dies]

Originally Posted by troyatlarge

I did run across one issue while loading OS's. So systems loaded and had no option about flashing the MBR with the new installed grub, they simply do it - thus instead of booting from the boot partition, it boots up from, say sda7. When that happens I have a need to re-flash the MBR with the grub on the boot partition (the one shown above) - how does one do that? (I still have several distros to load and figure its bound to come up).

For the old grub see here or here. For grub2, grub-install is all you need.

Originally Posted by troyatlarge

Last, I have not heard of a VirtualBox - what exactly is thier advantage?

Not having to deal with any of this stuff, not having to reboot to use a different OS, and depending on the amount of memory you have, being able to run a few different systems at once.

[scottro]

VirtualBox is a program (that now has repos for Fedora), that enable you to run virtual machines--that is, it creates a virtual environment, more or less, where you can run another O/S, as per Dies' picture.

You should have a decent machine to run it, as of course, it uses resources.

[troyatlarge]

Oh - this is GREAT - I have to try it. I'll finish this set up first - in fact, I was rather hoping to get a script to run, if possible, so that she would fire up to a different OS every time I restarted the computer, sort of like a random selector - you know, just to give the box that nerd sort of feel. All the same,VirtualBox sounds great. In fact, it may have some work application if I can actually do the right stuff with it - which I now will explain.

There are times we get Microsoft boxes so infested with stuff that they will not boot up. It seems the "fast" way is to pull the drive, hook it up externaly to a Microsoft box, and then run Malwarebytes on it (have not been able to run Malwarebytes via TrinityRescueKit or other Linux distros yet). Often, when the system is that bad we end up taking the drive to zero's, reload the OS and toss the data back at it. However, the best way to do that (which I have found thus far) is via Puppy with running in memory and our external backupdrive usb connected. Now, if I had one box wherein I could be running malwarbytes via Windows on the pigbacked hard drive and then transfer via puppy if the drive proved needy of reload, that would save time, for sure - sound like something VirtualBox might be able to do??

[troyatlarge]

So if I understand this correctly, given that I have a /boot sector with grub on it (shown above in its menu.lst form) then, if adding a OS which flashes its own grub to the MBR from sbaX, I can get back the MBR flash from the /boot sector simply by bashing into grub and typing:

setup (hd0)

(my first sector of the harddrive is the /boot partition). That is way cool - these people who figured out grub did a great job for sure!

[droidhacker]

Originally Posted by Demz

lots of newbs call it 9.1 they even did the same with Ubuntu8.10 - 8.1

Quite honestly, if they're going to write it in the form of a decimal number, as the least significant digit, 9.10 is equal (though of greater accuracy) to 9.1.

Versioning in this manner really shouldn't use numerical punctuation -- something else, i.e. "-" --> 9-10 makes a lot more sense than 9.10, but even that could be viewed as 9-10=-1. How about a ":"? 9:10, BUT....
Since this version number is actually a DATE, how about "/"?

Dern 'buntu freaks...

[scottro]

@droidhacker, best laugh of the day, so far. Yes, numerically 9.1 *is* equal to 9.10, so.....

[Gödel]

ubuntu 9.09999999.... , or even

           ∞
Ubuntu 9 + 𝜮 (9×10^-n)
          n=2

[troyatlarge]

Originally Posted by Gödel

ubuntu 9.09999999.... , or even

           ∞
Ubuntu 9 + 𝜮 (9×10^-n)
          n=2

LMAO!! Now that's a good one!