Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
On Sun, 2012-04-22 at 17:41 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote: On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:32:48 +0100 Adam Williamson wrote: Are you sure you're not just talking about https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=804835 ? Sure. I'm just reading the writing on the wall :-). They spew messages about it being fragile, they require a --force option, there are old bugzillas upstream from when they broke it previously. It is bound to stop functioning completely someday. Strictly speaking it's the use of blocklists which they consider fragile, and you usually (but not always) need to use blocklists to actually install grub2 into a partition. There is as far as I know no indication that upstream considers the actual _chainloading_ functionality to be fragile or on the way out. -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora http://www.happyassassin.net -- test mailing list test@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
What is it you do not like about the defaults such that you are chainloading ? I have a couple dozen different OS root partitions: back to Fedora 6 (some cases with both 32-bit and 64-bit variants), back to Ubuntu 7.10, SuSE, Debian testing, plus that Other OS. I like to identify the OS by hostname (which I set as distro+version+wordsize) _and_ kernel. I also like to decide the order in the boot menu. grub2 doesn't do any of that, plus makes it hard for _me_ to do that. -- -- test mailing list test@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 09:53:25 -0600 (MDT) Bodhi Zazen wrote: The default is to install grub2 to the MBR. It will detect you OS and allow you to select which OS to boot. the grub2 os-prober is much better and, with the complexity of configuring grub2, most people go with the defaults. The os prober is utterly worthless. It hard codes the paths to the kernels installed in the other OS which existed at the time you installed that instance of grub2. If you boot the other OS and get a kernel update, the OS that was installed last (and now owns the MBR) knows nothing about the new kernel unless I manually run grub2-mkconfig again after booting back into that kernel. That is not better or simpler. If I have a single stand alone grub partition that chain loads everything else, then each of the other kernels can do their updates and manage their own boot loader and everyone is happily independent. (Or was till GRUB2 decided it was too good to be chainloaded in the ordinary way and must use the new and improved multiboot instead). -- test mailing list test@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
The default is to install grub2 to the MBR. It will detect you OS and allow you to select which OS to boot. the grub2 os-prober is much better and, with the complexity of configuring grub2, most people go with the defaults. os-prober much better? I disagree! with old grub, FreeBSD was detected. Now it was a major pain to get to triple boot a machine. I had a typo and thanks to folks here on test list, I got it going. But I had to play around with 40_ custom and add the freebsd entry there and then modify /etc/grub2/custom or whatever it is called so I could remove the rhgb and quiet parameters and then run grub2-???. Initially I had edited it manually and removed the lines. But then kernel updates made the rhgb quiet come back :( It is possible to do as you wish with grub2, it is highly customizable, more so then grub1, but more complex and the documentation makes for some long reading. In addition there are some differences between how Ubuntu and Fedora configure grub2. See also: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub-2.html https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB2 http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html You can set bg images and set the order of OS if you so desire. You have to fool grub2 and modify _10 add a number less than that so it could become the default, but it is workable. While I appreciate you may document on your web site, contributing to fedora documentation is likely to be more beneficial as it can be peer reviewed and updated by others. I appreciate what you are trying to accomplish (I used to do the same with grub 1), but, IMO, with grub2, it is a long run for a short slide. It seems to me you are making it more difficult then it has to be and frustrated by an increase in complexity in configuration and a lack of reading / understanding the documentation. I read and read and read again many times. The documentation is not up to par. However being perseverant and asking help about a situation and caring people willing to help, then these issues are not major. But it is far from being easy. good luck to you, hope the links I gave you help or that you get it running the way you want. Perhaps someone else can help with specific scripting. The question here for Tom or others, that used to install grub to a specific partition and use chainload to boot the different OSes, is indeed a pain with this grub2. But with extra help, and patience, It can be done. Tom has worked it out, but I wonder if he has saved the changes in the /etc/grub2/default file so that updates won't mess any of his changes? Best Regards, Antonio -- test mailing list test@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
--- On Sun, 4/22/12, Tom Horsley horsley1...@gmail.com wrote: From: Tom Horsley horsley1...@gmail.com Subject: Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive... To: test@lists.fedoraproject.org Date: Sunday, April 22, 2012, 9:10 AM On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 09:53:25 -0600 (MDT) Bodhi Zazen wrote: The default is to install grub2 to the MBR. It will detect you OS and allow you to select which OS to boot. the grub2 os-prober is much better and, with the complexity of configuring grub2, most people go with the defaults. The os prober is utterly worthless. It finds only windows partitions and restore partitions but not FreeBSD or other OSes, I agree 100%. It hard codes the paths to the kernels installed in the other OS which existed at the time you installed that instance of grub2. If you boot the other OS and get a kernel update, the OS that was installed last (and now owns the MBR) knows nothing about the new kernel unless I manually run grub2-mkconfig again after booting back into that kernel. That is not better or simpler. If I have a single stand alone grub partition that chain loads everything else, then each of the other kernels can do their updates and manage their own boot loader and everyone is happily independent. (Or was till GRUB2 decided it was too good to be chainloaded in the ordinary way and must use the new and improved multiboot instead). -- +1000 :) Regards, Antonio -- test mailing list test@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 09:58:02 -0700 (PDT) Antonio Olivares wrote: Tom has worked it out, but I wonder if he has saved the changes in the /etc/grub2/default file so that updates won't mess any of his changes? That's the other beauty of a stand alone grub partition. I don't do any updates to it (other than manually if I install a new OD somewhere). Each of the individual OS partitions does whatever they want to do to their own copy of grub, and I don't mess with their files. -- test mailing list test@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
On Sun, 2012-04-22 at 12:10 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote: (Or was till GRUB2 decided it was too good to be chainloaded in the ordinary way and must use the new and improved multiboot instead). Are you sure you're not just talking about https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=804835 ? -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora http://www.happyassassin.net -- test mailing list test@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:32:48 +0100 Adam Williamson wrote: Are you sure you're not just talking about https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=804835 ? Sure. I'm just reading the writing on the wall :-). They spew messages about it being fragile, they require a --force option, there are old bugzillas upstream from when they broke it previously. It is bound to stop functioning completely someday. -- test mailing list test@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
--- On Sun, 4/22/12, Tom Horsley horsley1...@gmail.com wrote:
From: Tom Horsley horsley1...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Grubs really aren't very attractive...
To: test@lists.fedoraproject.org
Date: Sunday, April 22, 2012, 2:41 PM
On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 22:32:48 +0100
Adam Williamson wrote:
Are you sure you're not just talking about
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=804835 ?
Sure. I'm just reading the writing on the wall :-).
They spew messages about it being fragile, they
require a --force option, there are old bugzillas
upstream from when they broke it previously. It is bound
to stop functioning completely someday.
I hope not :) It was an adventure to get the FreeBSD entry into it, but I
managed: [again without assistance from test-list it would have been harder! :(
]
[olivares@acer-aspire-1 ~]$ cat /etc/grub.d/40_custom
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry FreeBSD 9.0 {
insmod part_msdos
set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
chainloader +1
}
Then the defaults file removed the rhgb and quiet so I could see all the
startup services :)
[olivares@acer-aspire-1 ~]$ cat /etc/default/grub
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=Fedora
GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=rd.md=0 rd.dm=0 SYSFONT=True KEYTABLE=us
rd.lvm.lv=vg_acer-aspire-1/lv_root rd.luks=0 rd.lvm.lv=vg_acer-aspire-1/lv_swap
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
[olivares@acer-aspire-1 ~]$
But to do what you do, Tom, I admire you! You solve the complex problem of
chainloading several distros all at once. I am just happy to have a triple
boot going :) I solved some dual boot issues with lilo on slackware, but on
Fedora with grub2, it is an adventure!
--
Best Regards,
Antonio
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