grub2

[Shador]

I finished my grub2 packages for Salix. They should be fully working now.
On problem though, grub2 can't work with autoinstall. Because sfdisk doesn't create a post-MBR gap which is needed for grub2 with MS-DOS partition layout. The problem is that 440B have become a bit few for a bootloader and the only possible other place for embedding a boot loader on a MS-DOS layout is the usually existent post-MBR gap. This gap can be created by sfdisk with the -D option, thus making it compatible with grub2.

However, it would be great if some of you could test those packages and give me feedback how well they work. A bootloader is still a widely deployed piece of software and used in many different scenarios and thus needs thorough testing.
You can find them in the following locations:
http://gaia.homelinux.org/salix/package ... 86-2ab.txz
http://gaia.homelinux.org/salix/package ... ch-1ab.txz

Don't forget the dependencies of grub2, usually just os-prober (already on the repos) is enough.

The installation is handled by the sg2conf utility. You can launch it on CLI as root with 'sg2conf' or via Menu > System > sg2conf.
Also take a look at sg2conf --help, -a and -r can be very useful and some testing for those would be nice too.


After some testing, I'll deploy it to the repo.

[laprjns]

Works good on my laptop. Detected and installed Xp into the menu list and boots into it without problems. What determines which installed OS will be the default? At first the time out seem a little fast , but after rebooting a couple of times the five seconds is fine. Will install on my other two machines today.
Nice job. I never did get grub2 to work on ZW .

Rich

[Shador]

Works good on my laptop. Detected and installed Xp into the menu list and boots into it without problems. What determines which installed OS will be the default? At first the time out seem a little fast , but after rebooting a couple of times the five seconds is fine. Will install on my other two machines today.
Nice job. I never did get grub2 to work on ZW .

Rich

Thanks Rich for the testing
Nice to see it works for you.

The default value of default is 0, meaning the first menuentry. The overall order is running linux system and then other systems detected by os-prober. So generally a kernel of the running system is the default. If there are multiple, as far as I can see, the latest one is chosen.
All in all this means the latest kernel of the running OS is the default. Hope this answered your question.


BTW grub-mkconfig should be able to reuse lilo.conf, grub.cfg or menu.lst files from other linux partitions. So if you keep any of those files valid on each linux system, os-prober should parse it properly and thus grub2 should be able to create a proper menuentry for it.

[laprjns]

Got grub2 up and running on all three of my Salix machines. All three are multi-boot and grub2 pick up all the existing OS's, including Windows. One system did not have the "post MBR gap" so I had to use gprarted to move a few partition to the "right". After that sg2conf was able to complete the installation and grub2 was working.
Had a few other problems, but in the end they were not grub 2 issues
Nice work Shador and thanks for help on irc.

Rich

[damNageHack]

/var/log/sg2conf.log

Code: Select all

error: cannot open `/dev/sde' while attempting to get disk size
Moved `/etc/lilo.conf' to `/etc/lilo.conf.replaced_by_grub2'.
Saved the GRUB2 environment variables to '/etc/default/grub'.

GRUB_DEFAULT='0'
GRUB_TIMEOUT='5'
GRUB_GFXMODE='640x480'
GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT='gfxterm'
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR='Salix'
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT='splash=silent resume=/dev/sda3'
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=' Gtk-WARNING (recursed) **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "murrine",'
GRUB_USE_LINUX_SYMLINK='yes'
GRUB_TARGET=''
GRUB_FONT=''

Installing to: ''

install_device not specified.
Usage: grub-install [OPTION] install_device
Install GRUB on your drive.

  -h, --help              print this message and exit
  -v, --version           print the version information and exit
  --modules=MODULES       pre-load specified modules MODULES
  --root-directory=DIR    install GRUB images under the directory DIR
                          instead of the root directory
  --grub-setup=FILE       use FILE as grub-setup
  --grub-mkimage=FILE     use FILE as grub-mkimage
  --grub-mkdevicemap=FILE use FILE as grub-mkdevicemap
  --grub-probe=FILE       use FILE as grub-probe
  --no-floppy             do not probe any floppy drive
  --recheck               probe a device map even if it already exists
  --force                 install even if problems are detected
  --disk-module=MODULE    disk module to use

INSTALL_DEVICE can be a GRUB device name or a system device filename.

grub-install copies GRUB images into the DIR/boot directory specified by
--root-directory, and uses grub-setup to install grub into the boot
sector.

Report bugs to <bug-grub@gnu.org>.
'grub-install ""' failed!

/etc/lilo.conf.replaced_by_grub2

Code: Select all

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
# Append any additional kernel parameters:
append="quiet  vt.default_utf8=1 resume=/dev/sda3"
boot = /dev/sda
default = Linux-testing

# Boot BMP Image.
# Bitmap in BMP format: 640x480x8
  bitmap = /boot/salix.bmp
# Menu colors (foreground, background, shadow, highlighted
# foreground, highlighted background, highlighted shadow):
  bmp-colors = 255,20,255,20,255,20
# Location of the option table: location x, location y, number of
# columns, lines per column (max 15), "spill" (this is how many
# entries must be in the first column before the next begins to
# be used.  We don't specify it here, as there's just one column.
  bmp-table = 60,6,1,16
# Timer location x, timer location y, foreground color,
# background color, shadow color.
  bmp-timer = 65,29,0,255

# Standard menu.
# Or, you can comment out the bitmap menu above and 
# use a boot message with the standard menu:
#message = /boot/boot_message.txt

# Wait until the timeout to boot (if commented out, boot the
# first entry immediately):
prompt
# Timeout before the first entry boots.
# This is given in tenths of a second, so 600 for every minute:
timeout = 50
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
  reset
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1600x1200x64k
# vga = 798
# Normal VGA console
# vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769
# End LILO global section
# Windows bootable partition config begins
#other = /dev/sdd1
#  label = Windows
#  table = /dev/sdd
# Windows bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/sda1
  label = Linux-testing
  read-only

image = /boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-2.6.29.6-smp
  root = /dev/sda1
  label = Linux
  read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

Why is /etc/lilo.conf moved to a backup file? After sg2conf fails, lilo -v won't work any more!

[damNageHack]

sg2conf-gui works not.

grub2config-launcher works.

[Shador]

sg2conf-gui works not.

Could you be more specific about what's not working. Because here it is working without complains.

[damNageHack]

Log is in first post. What information do you need additionally to analyze?

[Shador]

What did you select, so that /dev/sde is chosen as install device?
As far as I can see from your log, it indicates wrong configuration by the script internally, but if you invoke sg2conf-gui and sg2conf in exactly the same way that's hardly possible, not to say impossible because (nearly) only the dialog executable is replaced by Xdialog.

Log is in first post. What information do you need additionally to analyze?

Sorry, I didn't see the other post.

[damNageHack]

Nothing specific selected. Just call it and choose the preselections. My boot device is /dev/sda.

Code: Select all

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
set default=5
insmod xfs
set root=(hd1,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set bbb15e17-a69b-4f09-986a-8908e7514515
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
  set gfxmode=640x480
  insmod gfxterm
  insmod vbe
  if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
    # For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
    # understand terminal_output
    terminal gfxterm
  fi
fi
set timeout=5
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_salix_theme ###
insmod xfs
set root=(hd1,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set bbb15e17-a69b-4f09-986a-8908e7514515
insmod jpeg
if background_image /boot/grub/salix.jpg ; then
  set menu_color_normal=light-blue/black
  set menu_color_highlight=light-green/black
else
  set menu_color_normal=light-blue/black
  set menu_color_highlight=light-green/black
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/05_salix_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "Salix GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.31.5-smp" {
	insmod xfs
	set root=(hd1,1)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set bbb15e17-a69b-4f09-986a-8908e7514515
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-testing-2.6.31.5-smp root=/dev/sda1 ro   splash=silent resume=/dev/sda3 vga=791
}
menuentry "Salix GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.31.5-smp (recovery mode)" {
	insmod xfs
	set root=(hd1,1)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set bbb15e17-a69b-4f09-986a-8908e7514515
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-testing-2.6.31.5-smp root=/dev/sda1 ro single  
}
menuentry "Salix GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.29.6-smp" {
	insmod xfs
	set root=(hd1,1)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set bbb15e17-a69b-4f09-986a-8908e7514515
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-2.6.29.6-smp root=/dev/sda1 ro   splash=silent resume=/dev/sda3 vga=791
}
menuentry "Salix GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.29.6-smp (recovery mode)" {
	insmod xfs
	set root=(hd1,1)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set bbb15e17-a69b-4f09-986a-8908e7514515
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-huge-smp-2.6.29.6-smp root=/dev/sda1 ro single  
}
menuentry "Salix GNU/Linux, with Linux vmlinuz" {
	insmod xfs
	set root=(hd1,1)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set bbb15e17-a69b-4f09-986a-8908e7514515
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro   splash=silent resume=/dev/sda3 vga=791
}
menuentry "Salix GNU/Linux, with Linux vmlinuz (recovery mode)" {
	insmod xfs
	set root=(hd1,1)
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set bbb15e17-a69b-4f09-986a-8908e7514515
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro single  
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# 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.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###