GRUB and dual booting Ubuntu/Puppy 2.10

[bosston]

I tried setting up a dual boot with 1 primary partion (66 gig for Ubuntu) - 1 gig Linux Swap + 10 gig for Puppy Linux = 76 gig. The Ubuntu install went fine but when installing Puppy on the 10 gig I did a Normal Install and installed Grub but Grub is already installed with Ubuntu.

I tried running the Menu option for Ubuntu and it says Line 15 error and doesn't boot up when I run the Puppy Linux install it boots up fine. How can I get these two to coexist peacefully?

[pg99]

they can co-exist, but because Ubuntu is Debian-based and Debian likes to control things like grub settings you just need to be careful what goes in the menu.lst file.

Did puppy change your Ubuntu-generated menu list, or did it create a new one? (Do you have a backup of the original menu.lst?)

Can you get Ubuntu to boot at all?

What puppy files do you now have on your 10Gig puppy partition?

Sorry for so many Q's - just don't want to jump in and say do this/that without knowing what situation you are in now.

rgds
Phil

[bosston]

Right now I have Ubuntu still installed on the 66 gig partition and I cleaned off the 10 gig partition so there is no operating system on it.

[pg99]

OK great, so there is no mess to clean up

Simce you already have grub bootloader from Ubuntu, the easiest way to get puppy too is to do a frugal install. Just do the following from inside Ubuntu, no need to actually boot from the puppy CD just insert it in the CD drive like any regular CD.

make a new directory in your 10Gig partition, call it boot
copy files initrd.gz and vmlinuz off the CD into the boot directory
copy pup_xxx.sfs to the root of your 10Gig partition
you don't need any other files off the CD
now you need to edit your Ubuntu /boot/grub/menu.lst (take a copy first JIC) to boot puppy too. Just keep your puppy edits well away from the debian auto-generated stuff, it should be obvious where that ends, but if in any doubt just add the new lines right at the end of the file. Here's what you need to add:

title Puppy Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0
initrd /boot/initrd.gz

You just need to figure out what should go in that root (hd0,2) line for your system. I assume you know as you created the partition...if you're not sure you can mount the 10Gig in Ubuntu and type df then if it comes up as say /dev/hda2 you know it should be (hd0,1) coz grub numbers start at zero.

Then just reboot and you should get puppy choice in your grub menu.

Once you've got it all setup take a copy of the puppy entry in menu.lst just in case it gets trashed by ubuntu if/when you upgrade the kernel.

hth
Phil

[marksouth2000]

I keep saying this till I'm bored of it, but....

If you run multiple distros, install their bootloaders to the root of their own partitions. Leave the MBR alone. I'll say that again: LEAVE THE MBR ALONE!

Put something like Smart Boot Manager in the MBR and you'll never have to bother about messing with MBRs and hand-modding GRUB and LILO.

Of course, just because a solution is simple, effective, and reliable (contra the alternatives) doesn't mean anyone actually wants to use it, of course

[pg99]

um, how does copying a few files and editing menu.lst constitute changing the MBR?

[bosston]

Thanks for all the good information. I'll do it.

[marksouth2000]

um, how does copying a few files and editing menu.lst constitute changing the MBR?

The same way that washing your Giraffe with Dove constitutes the misapplication of species. Obviously.

[pg99]

Obviously. God I wish I was as smart and helpful as you are, then I could shout MY WAY IS BEST at everyone and feel smug.

[pmshah]

First thing you should do is test the installation procedure in a virtual machine to check & see if you hae a clear choice where you want your bootloader installed. Ubuntu simply does not offer hat chouce at any stage of installation. It almost trashed my entire hard disk. Fortunately for me I am running BootIT Ng as m boot/patition manager &* was able to salvage everything without any loss.

Puppy very clearly offers you the bootloader installaton location choice. (Just wih other distros would learn from this) So the only thing to do would be to install puppy with lbootloader in its own partition & if you must have Ubuntu, install it after all other OSes you might want to install.

Apparently a version of Ubuntu is available on the net that offers you this bootloader location choice but I don't hink it is worth my while in time & bandwidtch usage to download 700 mb simply to test it out.

[raffy]

Phil(pg99):

Since you already have grub bootloader from Ubuntu, the easiest way to get puppy too is to do a frugal install.

- it is really fun working with menu.lst to add different Puppy installs in one machine. I did the way of Phil in an NTFS partition and had two instances of Puppy: one frugal install on the NTFS partition and another full install on a new partition (created with Gparted).

And in a WinXP-dominated hard disk, obviously you can't use the MBR!

[Getnikar]

And in a WinXP-dominated hard disk, obviously you can't use the MBR!

Yes you can. If you install XP first, then Ubuntu and tell it to put grub on the mbr, grub will include the corrrect lines to boot XP in its menu.lst. Then add more lines for booting Puppies and other distros.