Why we need Grub 2: 256-bit inode support, needed for ext4

[Sit Heel Speak]

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/ ... ls/6480/1/

[amigo]

There's a patch to 0.97 which adds support for 256-bit inodes and you actually use the same ext2_stage1_5 just by making a copy called
ext4_stage1_5
No need to panic just yet

[Patriot]

Hmmm .....

Sith eel Speak,

..... or may I suggest that you dabble with grub4dos, which by the way, have 256bit inode support since somewhere june 2008 and ext4 since Feb 2009 ...

I've replaced all grub legacy loaders with grub4dos when I found out simple condition checking works .....


Rgds

[sikpuppy]

If Ubuntu 9.10 is anything to go by, GRUB 2 is very slow at booting. I think I'd rather stick with a patched 0.97 myself.

Even 9.04 was fairly quick to boot, and that was with GRUB 0.97 and off a ext4 partition.

[davesurrey]

sikpuppy wrote:

If Ubuntu 9.10 is anything to go by, GRUB 2 is very slow at booting...

Certainly it's a lot slower than Puppy but I did try both grub2 and grub 0.97 with 9.10 and found no significant difference in boot times, as I would expect.

However whatever grub2 offers for the future it's certainly a pita to set up compared with 0.97

Cheers
Dave

[Sit Heel Speak]

Ah, thank you all for the information!

A lot of last-minute additions were made by the Ubuntu developers between 9.04 and 9.10 --more than 200, by my count-- --possibly many more, that's just where I gave up on counting-- under intense pressure to meet their October 29 2009 release deadline. Obviously they didn't get 9.10 well ironed out, working in such haste.

[sikpuppy]

Ah, thank you all for the information!

A lot of last-minute additions were made by the Ubuntu developers between 9.04 and 9.10 --more than 200, by my count-- --possibly many more, that's just where I gave up on counting-- under intense pressure to meet their October 29 2009 release deadline. Obviously they didn't get 9.10 well ironed out, working in such haste.

IMHO the same was true of 8.10, which wasn't as polished as 9.04.

...
Certainly it's a lot slower than Puppy but I did try both grub2 and grub 0.97 with 9.10 and found no significant difference in boot times, as I would expect.

I'm curious as to why 9.10 is slow to boot using either GRUB. Do you find that it stays on the logo for an inordinate amount of time before reaching the progress bar screen? I'll have to find out what exactly it's doing behind the scenes.

[davesurrey]

Hi sikpuppy,
I can't give you a very scientific answer except to say that I don't find 9.10 boots slower than any other Ubuntu since 6.04 (I think) but of course it's slower than puppy.

I don't notice it "hangs" at any part of the boot sequence but in any case whatever we feel about grub2 I can't criticise it for slowness.

Cheers
Dave

[sikpuppy]

Hi sikpuppy,
I can't give you a very scientific answer except to say that I don't find 9.10 boots slower than any other Ubuntu since 6.04 (I think) but of course it's slower than puppy.

I don't notice it "hangs" at any part of the boot sequence but in any case whatever we feel about grub2 I can't criticise it for slowness.

Cheers
Dave

Ok it must be my 9.10 install. I'll do a fresh install and see. Thanks.

[davesurrey]

FWIW just did a quick boot (on the same PC) to Puppy 431 (46 seconds) and to Ubuntu 9.10 (100secs).
As I said FWIW
Dave

[sikpuppy]

FWIW just did a quick boot (on the same PC) to Puppy 431 (46 seconds) and to Ubuntu 9.10 (100secs).
As I said FWIW
Dave

Nah, this is in the range of a few minutes on my desktop, so I think that something is borked.

I made the mistake of reading a few people had this issue, but it's probably more a case of PEBCAK with me :S

*Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard