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On 17 March 2010 14:42, Grant Sewell <dcglug@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:52:27 +0000 > Philip Whateley wrote: > >> Hi >> >> Some time ago I posted on the list asking about adding debian as a >> dual boot onto an existing Ubuntu laptop. >> >> This was fairly successful except that I now have a problem with Grub. >> >> Ubuntu was already installed on (hd0,0). Debian is now installed on >> (hd0,1) with separate swap and home partitions. >> >> The problem is that debian has installed its own grub onto hd0,1. I >> had to edit the menu.lst file on the debian partition when I upgraded >> from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 (fortunately I made a copy of the menu.lst >> on hd0,0 before I restarted after the upgrade) otherwise grub on >> debian couldn't see a valid ubuntu kernel. >> >> This means that whenever I upgrade, or install a new kernel in >> Ubuntu, I will have to re-edit the menu.lst file on the debian >> partition. >> >> Also, because the system initially boots from debian and then passes >> to Ubuntu, I am getting lots of errors and warnings, as debian has the >> ubuntu partition and swap partition mounted and ubuntu can't start >> properly until the mounts are released. I now have a /var/log/syslog >> approaching 3Gb! >> >> I would like to set up the system so it boots first from the Ubuntu >> partition - is this as simple as executing >> sudo grub-install '(hd0,0)' >> and if so, do I execute this from ubuntu, or does the ubuntu partition >> need to be unmounted? >> >> Many thanks >> >> Phil > > I had a multi-boot setup with many different Linuxes at one point. It > made things interesting, but was OK in the end. > > I adopted 2 approaches at different times. > > One was to have a small partition (say 100MB) and have that as > the /boot partition on each distro. This works well if you are > manually crafting your own boot setup - all the kernels and initrds in > one partition, maybe divided into directories/folders, etc. Can get a > bit unwieldy though if any of your distros try to "work the magic" by > itself. > > Another method, which is kind of a cop-out, is to have grub/lilo > installed to the distro's main partition (/) - so if Debian has / on > sda2 then Debian's grub/lilo gets installed to sda2 (not sda). Likewise > if Ubuntu has / on sda1 then Ubuntu's grub/lilo is installed to sda1 > (not sda). You'd also install an additional grub/lilo into the MBR as > well, but this just presents a simple menu that then passes control to > the grub/lilo for the chosen distro. > > It sounds complicated, but it's not. Essentially when booting you'd > first be presented with the MBR menu; you make a selection (Debian) > which then passes control to the boot code in sda2 (in this example), > which happens to be grub/lilo... which presents you with a menu of > which kernel to load and any other options you've specified. I have tried this with 2 versions of Mint and Grub2, it isnt as easy. update-grub picks up both linux partitions, identifies them correctly, but the menu it writes says all the linux partitions are Mint 8 KDE and that all of the kernels are for all the linux partitions. Since you're not supposed to edit grub.cfg manually, what is the official method of tidying up this menu? -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html