Making GRUB easier for a true multi-boot system -> CONCEPT

[vinnywright]

" ...

"3. Here's the key part: Install GRUB from each OS to it's own partition PBR. Set the GRUB menu to not appear at all."

Yes, necessary, of course--and not a bad idea to do in general, being prepared for rescue-booting (manually at the grub prompt) should the need arise.

yes and/or check and see if you can get the second grub to show it's self by taping the shift key as soon as you start to leave the first grub screen ,,,I dont like the idea of not being able to get to the second grub screen encase you kneed to boot a previous kernel

Now, just one thing. Rusty here, as I've only recently started using 12.04 (and still have my trusty 8.04.3 running on my 2nd PC at my desk) ... but I THOUGHT that when a new kernel is installed, the system (not sure where the call comes from) automatically issues a grub update and a new grub.cfg is generated. That is, no need for manual reboots to update the grub menu. I'm certain I read this somewhere?

that is correct ,,,,but as @oshunluvr sead if you have multiple installs (I have 3) the 2 secondary installs dont control the mane grub install so IT'S boot list dose not know about the new kernel until update-grub is run on the install that controls it ,,,that is the mane install .....I to get tired of doing that some times

@oshunluvr if your going to be the Ginny pig let us know how it goes for sure as I will follow if it works well
and remember completely noob friendly directions for the how to ,,,,that means explanations on installing grub to its own partition , reinstalling grub to a partition and how to setup chain loading with examples

VINNY

EDDIT oops just saw I missed a bunch of post's LOL

[Qqmike]

yeah, vinny, all that stuff is (I'm pretty sure) in my how-to
Grub 2: A Guide for Users
though I readily confess to being rusty on it, not having used it for 4 years or so;
also, the how-to may be too brief at times, though it should all be there AND I neurotically carefully tested everything in it;

S-R, thanks for your Post #15; have copied it into my GRUB how-to files!

[Tabko-00]

GRUB as always been problematic for me but anyway here is something to consider:
?? Why would be need to "update GRUB" . How about a separate text file that contains the stuff to change and then just ">>" in a short script to add the new contents. Error checking could be in the append script.
Just thoughts
Tabok-00

[vinnywright]

yeah, vinny, all that stuff is (I'm pretty sure) in my how-to
http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...uide-for-Users
though I readily confess to being rusty on it, not having used it for 4 years or so;
also, the how-to may be too brief at times, though it should all be there AND I neurotically carefully tested everything in it;

S-R, thanks for your Post #15; have copied it into my GRUB how-to files!

that link is broken ......

VINNY

[Snowhog]

that link is broken ......

VINNY

I fixed the link.

[vinnywright]

I fixed the link.

thank you Sr. ,,,,,and duly bookmarked

VINNY

[Qqmike]

The link is still broken. What's up with all the 404's around here! In my bookmarks for KFN, I've encountered tons of Not Found's.

[Qqmike]

http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...uide-for-Users

should work ... let me test it

Works.

But, also, Snowhog DID successfully fix the link in my post above!
Gremlins everywhere ...
Sorry.

Where is oshunluvr!

[GreyGeek]

Since this is a thread about grub allow me to inject something I picked up on G+ today.

http://www.noobslab.com/2012/05/inst...omizer-in.html

I've installed it but I haven't run it yet. The usual caveats apply.

[vinnywright]

Since this is a thread about grub allow me to inject something I picked up on G+ today.

http://www.noobslab.com/2012/05/inst...omizer-in.html

I've installed it but I haven't run it yet. The usual caveats apply.

we have something vary smiler in the repos called kde-config-grub2 it adds a config module to system settings>startup and shutdown that looks a lot like that

VINNY

[oshunluvr]

Okay: It's pretty much working.

I had to set up different stanzas for the installs that use separate /boot. I haven't got all the prettiness worked out - like my background image doesn't display. I still need to setup the individual installs to not display their own menus. One behavior I've observed is after you select the boot stanza and the second menu is displayed, you can return to the main menu with ESC - kind of a nice action.

It's wasn't really much work. I installed grub with grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/grub /dev/sda (/mnt/grub is /dev/sda2 on my system) then edited the grub.cfg residing there to show stanzas like:

menuentry 'Kubuntu 12.04' {
search --set root --label Kubuntu_12_04 --hint hd3,msdos2
configfile /boot/grub/grub.cfg
}


menuentry 'Kubuntu 12.10' {
search --set root --label Kubuntu_12_10 --hint hd3,msdos4
configfile /boot/grub/grub.cfg
}


menuentry 'Back Track' {
search --set root --label BackTrack5_R3 --hint hd3,msdos3
configfile /boot/grub/grub.cfg
}


menuentry 'Kubuntu 12.04 - previous' {
set root='(hd1,msdos2)'
configfile /grub/grub.cfg
}


menuentry 'SDABC7' {
search --set root --label boot_abc7 --hint hd2,msdos2
configfile /grub/grub.cfg
}


menuentry 'SDC5' {
set root='hd2,msdos5'
configfile /boot/grub/grub.cfg
}


menuentry 'USB' {
set root='hd4,msdos1'
chainloader +1
}

As an added bonus; I created a chainloader stanza that allows me to boot directly to a thumb drive. On my old (2007) motherboard, you have to boot to BIOS with the thumb drive inserted, select the thumb drive as the boot device (my BIOS sees it as a hard drive), continue the boot. Once you're done you have to re-enter BIOS and re-select the hard drive boot order. Now, I just select the stanza titled "USB" and it chainloads to the thumb drive. The example above has it in it.

Once I get resolutions, fonts, colors and backgrounds working to my liking I'll post a how-to.

Works like a charm!

[vinnywright]

ok thinking of a few questions now ......

1-was /mnt/grub (/dev/sda2) a separate partition just containing /grub or an installed OS ?
and
2- dose not grub start counting drives as hd0=sda with the msdos1=partition1 or /sda1 if - hd0,msdos1 ?

if so I see no hd0's in your list ,,,,,do you not use your first hard drive ? and how many are in that box becose you go up to hd3 or /sdd ? yes/no

maby a fdisk -l output with that would make things clearer

VINNY

[SecretCode]

Since this is a thread about grub allow me to inject something I picked up on G+ today.

http://www.noobslab.com/2012/05/inst...omizer-in.html

I've installed it but I haven't run it yet. The usual caveats apply.

I use grub-customizer - it's great. (Except visually.)

It has some more capabilities, like renaming entries and grouping into submenus, that I can't see in kde-config-grub2.

[oshunluvr]

ok thinking of a few questions now ......

1-was /mnt/grub (/dev/sda2) a separate partition just containing /grub or an installed OS ?

Just grub in a 200MB partition. GRUB uses less than 4MB but I use 200MB partitions for /boot so that's what I had available.

The procedure is to mount the partition somewhere, run grub-install with the --boot-directory=somewhere option. This then copies the grub files to the somewhere location and points GRUB at the somewhere location. If you do nothing else and then run update-grub, a new grub.cfg is generated in the somewhere location. In this case, since I wanted to keep my hand written grub.cfg, I re-ran grub-install and pointed it at a partition as a target. That way update-grub creates a grub.cfg in /boot/grub/ and not in my stand-alone grub location. If I wanted to update the version of GRUB I was booting to, I would need to re-do this procedure.

2- dose not grub start counting drives as hd0=sda with the msdos1=partition1 or /sda1 if - hd0,msdos1 ?

if so I see no hd0's in your list ,,,,,do you not use your first hard drive ? and how many are in that box becose you go up to hd3 or /sdd ? yes/no

maby a fdisk -l output with that would make things clearer

VINNY

I have 3-500GB (sda,b,c) hardrives and 1-120GB SSD (sdd). My current partitioning scheme is:

Hard drives partitions all identical sizes but different uses:
sd_1 = swap
sd_2 = 200MB - sda2 for GRUB and sdb2/sdc2 for /boot
sd_4 = Extended
sda5 and sdb5 = Joined via btrfs-RAID and booted from sdb2, sdc5 = stand alone install, current Kubuntu 10.04
sd_6 = All stand alone, contains backup datafiles (music, docs, etc) from my server
sd_7 = All joined via btrfs-RAID and booted from sdc2
sd_8 = All joined via btrfs-RAID, contains my personal datafiles (music, docs, etc).

The SDD currently has only 4 partitions, sdd1=swap and 2,3,4 are for installs.

I do use hd0/sda for some installs, but the stanzas in my grub.cfg don't show them because they're booted from sdb2 and sdc2, The grub partition is hd0,msdos2 a.k.a. sda2. What you see in the grub.cfg is the first three stanzas point at the SSD and the next three at sdb2,sdc2 and sdc5. The last one is the USB boot stanza I talked about.

Once I got the SSD, the first thing I did was use it to install to, keeping the lion's share of my data on the much larger hard drives. I use the separate /boot partitions for my btrfs installs as a hold-over from the days when GRUB wouldn't boot to btrfs. I've never bothered to stop using them because recovering the 200MB on a 500GB drive wasn't worth the trouble.

[GreyGeek]

So, oceanluver, you ignored the warnings about editing grub.cfg because it will be overwritten by the next kernel upgrade? You'll need to repeat that when your kernel is upgraded, won't you?