[opensuse] Multiboot: Grub where?
- From: Felix Miata <mrmazda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2012 10:34:00 -0400
On 2012/06/02 15:52 (GMT+0700) Constant Brouerius van Nidek composed:
Felix Miata wrote:
http://old-en.opensuse.org/Bugs/grub#How_does_a_PC_boot_.2F_How_can_I_
set_up_a_working_GRUB.3F ?
I have a multiple boot which works but is quit unorganized. I have
never made a separate /boot and always used the mbr from the first HD.
If I want to remove the grub from the MBR of my first disk, it is easy.
Fdisk/ Cfdisk. Make the mbr active. But then? Where do you place the
grub? From which openSUSE? With every update, Yast writes something to
the bootloader from the owner of the grub. Can their multiple owners?
I have e.g. KDE4, LXDE (both12.1)and 12.2M3 apart from DrDos, Puppy
and Windows XP and no idea how to cleanup my system.
How do you manage your multiple system? All with chainloader?
How could/would the grub2 be included/used?
So many questions! It's understandable. Once you have more than two installed operating systems, the complexity and possibilities multiply exponentially. There can be no "right" answer to how to manage booting in these cases. The best that can be done is for someone with experience to take a particular scenario that someone isn't too happy with and suggest how to improve it.
So, lets address most questions after having a scenario presented to work with, providing context, along with at least one specific goal beyond "make it better".
To provide context (scenario), annotated output from fdisk -l, or something similar, to show what is where now needs to be provided. The tool I use for partitioning (including cloning, copying and moving partitions, among other things), DFSee, can make annotation easy, as it automatically creates a chart with such information in its text log file. An example: http://fm.no-ip.com/Tmp/Dfsee/gx280L02.txt . DFSee is shareware, has native executables for 5 different operating systems (e.g. fits and runs from floppy boot if necessary), and is useable for 30 day period for free. Note that its log indicates where Grub is installed. You may wish to give it a try if for no other reason than providing this contextual information. http://www.dfsee.com/
If you do this, either upload it (e.g. to http://susepaste.org/) and provide a link, or make it an attachment, to prevent line wrapping.
Some of the following address van Nidek's questions:
1-systems with NTLDR can be set up to effectively "chainload" Linux. The nice thing about using this feature is that Windows will never make it necessary to fix a Grub that Windows broke. The worst it will ever do if you're unlucky is write a new boot.ini file that excludes your non-Windows menu entries, making Linux temporarily unreachable. This is easily fixed by booting Windows and restoring a backup of boot.ini, or editing the new boot.ini.
2-AiR-Boot is a freeware boot manager with a lot of power. eComStation (eCS) now uses it instead of Grub or the IBM Boot Manager. I don't use it myself, but a lot of multibooters swear by it. http://sourceforge.net/projects/air-boot/
3-On my multiboot systems that have OS/2 (eCS) installed, IBM Boot Manager is installed. It is easily set to add each Windows or Linux installation to its boot menu, if you're using eCS/OS2's LVM tool, or DFSee.
4-Neither Grub Legacy nor Grub 2 can be managed by more than one OS. Grub Legacy is rather easy to manage by yourself with no interference from any OS. I recommend Grub Legacy for users who don't need HDs larger than 2T or EFI boot, and even for certain RAID and LVM users. It's relative simplicity makes it reliable, as long as its limitations are understood.
5-Installing Windows® After Something Else: http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/install-doz-after.html
6-Disk Partitions, OS/2, & Multiboot FAQ: http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/partitioningindex.html
7-Grub 2 is immensely more complicated and powerful than Grub Legacy. I don't use it, because I don't need anything it can do that isn't more easily done without it. Last I checked, it _still_ hadn't left beta, even though its been in development something like 6 or more years. Several of its basics are changed from Grub Legacy, making it difficult for those versed in Grub Legacy to transition from. That difficulty is compounded by the beta status making it a moving target. It can be difficult to find necessary docs to match the version you're attempting to use. And, its devs insist it needs to be located on the MBR, even though as with Grub Legacy it is possible to put on any supported partition.
Have a lot of fun! And, trim your quotes down to only what you're replying to! Interleaving is good! http://lists.opensuse.org/ has the original, and doesn't need multiple copies to make search results more difficult to navigate!
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
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