Has anyone dual booted Puppy + Ubuntu with GRUB2?

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davesurrey
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#41 Post by davesurrey »

Fishback wrote:
Davesurry pointed out that I modified the 40_custom file. Initially, I created a new script file (copied over the header info and made it executable) but for some reason the contents of that file were not pulled into grub.cfg.
How did you make it executable?
I used

Code: Select all

 sudo chmod +x /etc/grub.d/41_puppy
assuming your new file was 41_puppy. Change as appropriate.

Can you show us your original (non 40_custom ) file so we can see what might be wrong. What were the first 2 lines of the file?

Thanks
Dave

Fishback
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#42 Post by Fishback »

The file I created was named 40_puppy and it had the exact same contents as 40_custom. I deleted 40_puppy but here's the full contents of 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 "Puppy Linux 4.30 (retro)- Frugal Install" {
set root=(hd0,5)
linux /puppy430/vmlinuz pmedia=idehd psubdir=puppy430 nosmp pfix=fsck
initrd /puppy430/initrd.gz
}
I used the same command that you did to make the file executable, with the file name changed of course. I also made the file executable via the file's properies.

davesurrey
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#43 Post by davesurrey »

Thanks Fishbank,
I still feel this whole thing is a bit of trail and error, especially as Grub2 is still in Beta !!!

So, have you tried eliminating

Code: Select all

nosmp pfix=fsck 
from the stanza?
Also try adding EOF at the last line of the script.
Then update-grub again.

I had a lot of trouble until I really simplified the script.



Dave

jeditalian
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#44 Post by jeditalian »

i didnt check how old this thread is, but since its dealing with 9.10 and 4.3.1, it cant be very old.
when you fixed your grub.cfg, did you have to go through setup every time you booted puppy? because i did. and having to go through setup every time means half the time i will end up with an invisible mouse cursor. but at least you got puppy and koala to cooperate. i couldnt figure it out because i couldnt edit the grub.cfg, until i discovered "gksudo nautilus".
i'm new to every live distro except knoppix, and i never installed knoppix to hd because i didnt know about synaptic package manager, and the equivalent of ubuntu software center, which is exactly what i needed to make a hd install worthwhile. i like puppy linux so much that i am considering (after backing up some files, or at least moving them to a separate partition) wiping my hard drive and installing puppy first, if that will defeat the karmic koala grub situation. i was happy with the boot selection that my bios provided. i know grub is better, with command prompt option and all, but with the old way, new installations would just show up on the boot select prompt. i didnt know the TMP/whatever that tells me what to put in my nonexistent menu.lst file was not going to the TMP directory on the partition that i installed puppy to, so i will have to do the live cd thing again tomorrow and save the file to see if what i put in my grub is the reason that it isnt using the puppy save file, making me gothru setup everytime i want to boot puppy.
i thought knoppix was fast.. puppy is awesome! ubuntu is slower than both of them, even when ubuntu is running off the hard drive and the other two are running live. ubuntu live is the slowest thing i've ever seen. you would think i was running on my old commodore 64lol
hey can we upgrade a c64 and run puppy? lol jk, i didnt mean to write a novel here, but i did.

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mikeb
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#45 Post by mikeb »

Funny how the discussions on this subject now resemble the problems encountered when dual booting with windows. So has ubuntu become the new challenge for linux to offer an alternative too...constantly endeavouring to monopolise the market? :D
For anyone wishing to try grub4dos with the latest and greatest ubuntu..
bootlace.com /dev/blah
installs the bootloader and menu.lst format is as grub 1

mike

davesurrey
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#46 Post by davesurrey »

mikeb

An interesting observation but one that I see no evidence to support.

FWIW
As far as booting is concerned (ie this thread) grub2 is not ubuntu and ubuntu is not grub2. They just happen to be one of the first to use grub2. Personally I don't like it (grub2, although still in beta) as it stands today but folk often resist change. But the facts, as far as this very small sample called "me" is concerned, say that I have never had a windows nor ubuntu boot problem but have had many with Puppy. Installing Debian Lenny and Fedora 12 today I found that grub2 picked them up automatically. No sweat.

I'm keeping an open mind on it.

Dave

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DaveS
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#47 Post by DaveS »

davesurrey wrote:mikeb

An interesting observation but one that I see no evidence to support.

FWIW
As far as booting is concerned (ie this thread) grub2 is not ubuntu and ubuntu is not grub2. They just happen to be one of the first to use grub2. Personally I don't like it (grub2, although still in beta) as it stands today but folk often resist change. But the facts, as far as this very small sample called "me" is concerned, say that I have never had a windows nor ubuntu boot problem but have had many with Puppy. Installing Debian Lenny and Fedora 12 today I found that grub2 picked them up automatically. No sweat.

I'm keeping an open mind on it.

Dave
Dave...... I suspect Grub2 would pick up a full Puppy install. I suspect it is the frugal system that poses the problem. It would after all, just look like any ordinary folder to an install program, not a whole operating system?
Spup Frugal HD and USB
Root forever!

davesurrey
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#48 Post by davesurrey »

Hi DaveS
That's an interesting thought which has got my (rapidly reducing) grey matter into gear.
Grub2 has picked up all my distros except puppy frugals and tinycore. Although to be honest it picked up Slitaz but it didn't work.

Also I never got grub 0.97 to pick up any puppy successfully.

I'll do a puppy full install to check this out.

Thanks
Dave

EDIT:
I tried a full install of Puppy 431 and Grub2 picked it up. More than I have ever managed before. Good news. Thanks for the tip DaveS.

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alienjeff
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#49 Post by alienjeff »

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Rink
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#50 Post by Rink »

Actually, they revamped Grub to Grub2 to add support for the newer file systems which Grub was having trouble with.

The problem is that they made it a lot less intuitive, with any changes to grub.conf liable to be overwritten.

As regards the motivational poster showing Ubuntu users as crybabies, my own experience is that the sudo implementation is in place to protect the system against mistakes by newbies which could damage the system, and it's a very worthwhile precaution.

Ubuntu has succeeded where a lot of distros have failed in weaning a very large set of users away from Microsoft, and for that they should be applauded.

And they've done that by protecting their users from what is going on 'under the hood' as much as possible.

With regard to the Grub impasse, I'm using grub4dos but I am finding Karmic doesn't start up and bombs out to Busybox; it would seem that I need to provide it with boot parameters, but these are not apparent from my grub.cfg file.

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alienjeff
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#51 Post by alienjeff »

Rink wrote:As regards the motivational poster showing Ubuntu users as crybabies, my own experience is that the sudo implementation is in place to protect the system against mistakes by newbies which could damage the system, and it's a very worthwhile precaution.
Ah, but who owns the system?

Many Linux users leave Microsoft to shed shackles; not to don a different type of shackle.
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amigo
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#52 Post by amigo »

Neither grub-legacy nor grub2 'pickup' anything at all. Detection of installed systems is done by the helper-scripts which are used to setup grub -those vary from one distro to another, so the mileage varies.

I also am no fan (yet) of grub2 -grub-legacy (with patches) can still do so much more than grub2. And the devs are in *no hurry* about getting grub2 into a really stable state -they may be some of the same guys developing the 'hurd' kernel which has been under development for about 15 years now and still won't boot.

No one on this forum should feel hurried to use grub2 -in the end the big advantage of it is the ability to work on arches besides x86 -so no one here need be bothered...

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mikeb
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#53 Post by mikeb »

-so no one here need be bothered
does this avatar look bothered :D

mike

davesurrey
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#54 Post by davesurrey »

amigo wrote
Neither grub-legacy nor grub2 'pickup' anything at all. Detection of installed systems is done by the helper-scripts which are used to setup grub
I detect that to be a swipe at what I wrote above so could you kindly educate me as to where these helper scripts are, in puppy for example.
Thanks
Dave

amigo
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#55 Post by amigo »

I didn't mean it as a swipe -just a clarification. I have no idea where the code is located in puppy -I think it may use an altered version of 'grubconfig'. Every distro that uses grub has a few scripts which work together to detect drives, offer options and install grub and menu.lst

ljfr
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LILO

#56 Post by ljfr »

Hi,
If you want to avoid grub2, from Ubuntu alternate CD in expert mode, you can use LILO instead of grub2,
regards,

davesurrey
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#57 Post by davesurrey »

amigo,
Thanks for the clarification. Also sorry...perhaps "swipe" was a little harsh.

I agree that files such as grub-config are not part of the basic grub-legacy and are distro specific.

I should have been clearer in saying that in my specific case I have found grub2 plus it's associated helper scripts in Ubuntu9.10 to be much better at detecting other distros than any grub-legacy plus helpers I have tried before (ubuntu, fedora, suse, arch, mandriva, slitaz, debian, puppy..)

Unfortunately I have also found puppy to be the worst in detection of the above, hence why I don't use it for booting.

But despite saying it more clearly my conclusion is the same; I prefer to use Ubuntu9.10 + grub2 for booting over Puppy.

That's all I was trying to say. And adding a little balance to the many detractors of grub2. Not trying to start a booting war here. :-)

Cheers
Dave

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mikeb
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#58 Post by mikeb »

So there is such a thing as a decent linux install script.?....one of the areas that windows gets it right....pop in cd...boot and install..partition and format as needed ...and it runs.
Only relable approach with linux is a fully manual one after a couple of years experience......a bit crap really...and any attempts with improving this with puppy are totally ignored...yeah let's just keep linux as an intellectual geek toy :D
hmmm I wonder why ubuntu is so popular?

mike

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DaveS
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#59 Post by DaveS »

mikeb wrote:So there is such a thing as a decent linux install script.?....one of the areas that windows gets it right....pop in cd...boot and install..partition and format as needed ...and it runs.
Only relable approach with linux is a fully manual one after a couple of years experience......a bit crap really...and any attempts with improving this with puppy are totally ignored...yeah let's just keep linux as an intellectual geek toy :D
hmmm I wonder why ubuntu is so popular?

mike
Now Mike, dont be such a Troll :)
Spup Frugal HD and USB
Root forever!

amigo
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#60 Post by amigo »

I started quite a long time ago to write my own grub installer -I've never gotten grubconfig to work properly for me.
debian and all the others use a comprehensive installer that updates the menu entries when you install a new kernel, etc, so the scripts are pretty complex.

One of the biggest drawbacks to auto-generating menu entries and installing grub(legacy at least), is that grub doesn't always see the same drives or in the same order as the BIOS.
When you run the grub program from the command-line you are running a binary program which has the advantage of 'knowing' about the drives from info it gets from the kernel. However, what gets installed to the MBR(or elsewhere) is not the same thing as the program it is a statically-compiled machine-language object and since it runs before the kernel it does not access to what the kernel may discover about drives. And, as far as I know, there is no way to query the BIOS for the 'knowledge' it has about drives which are present. Anyway, that's why grub doesn't always get it right -especially on system which have both IDE and SATA or SCSI devices hooked up.

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