(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Boot Loader Manager is a program that can install and configure Grub and Grub4Dos boot loaders. It provides a simple and self-explanatory user interface to edit menu entries and appearance of boot screen.

This program requires grub and grub4dos installed. Puppy already has grub installed, grub4dos can be installed from here

This program is now also able to install boot loader to CD or DVD or ISO image, but to use this feature you need an additional program cdrdao.

I would recommend that you have puppy live CD ready in case your computer becomes unbootable, so that you can easily recover it.

Source package can be downloaded from here.

Binary for Lucid Puppy 5:

Interesting so now it handle both grub legacy and grub4dos and the next logical step will be to add Grub2 to it's features.

No demand, no pressure at all only my heartfelt friendly suggestion.
Only do it if you feel for doing it. Computing should be fun or not done at all

This will be done soon in next version, maybe later if format of Grub2 is significantly different (I have not yet heard of Grub2). I also plan to add option to reconfigure existing boot loader and maybe add gfxmenu support.

akash_rawal,

Thanks for providing this program which looks very promising.

I hope you are able to find people to test it out, as most are afraid of ruining their boot setups.

Cheers,
s

(Edit: it seems to require an additional program - "bootlace.com" to run, which I don't believe is normally in any puppies)

seaside wrote:I hope you are able to find people to test it out, as most are afraid of ruining their boot setups.

I have tested the program in virtualbox and confirmed working.

seaside wrote:it seems to require an additional program - "bootlace.com" to run, which I don't believe is normally in any puppies

bootlace.com is present in grub4dos package I had mentioned in the first post.

Upgraded to version 1.1, see first post.
Changelog:

1. Added provision to edit existing boot loaders.
   Installer now mounts all drives as soon as it starts, resulting in faster search.
   Added gfxmenu support
   Bug fixed: version 0.1 didn't unmount the partition after install
   Bug fixed: version 0.1 didn't close config files
   Bug fixed: version 0.1 didn't handle custom memu entries properly
   Bug fixed: capitalisation errors in drive UUID: GRUB requires small letters but GRUB4DOS required capital letters when blkid returns capital ones
   Added option for setting root drive manually

if you only have tested in virtual box that does not sound convincing to me.

I have tested the program in virtualbox and confirmed working.

nooby wrote: if you only have tested in virtual box that does not sound convincing to me.

Don't be afraid, nothing worse can ever happen than your computer becoming unbootable. Hence I wrote:

Don't worry, till you have puppy live CD ready, you are safe.

You will not lose any data.

Upgraded to version 1.2, see first post.
Changelog:

• A dangerous bug fixed that could possibly wipe out entire partition.
  Fixed by mounting drives at /mnt/blm instead of /tmp/blm

Does anyone know how to find out size of MBR gap?
If the size is less than 63 sectors my program could then be able to display a warning that installing to MBR might not work.

Upgraded to version 1.3, see first post.
Changelog:

• Fixed a bug in selection for searching drives which sometimes led to crashes
  Added device map support for older grub
  Fixed name detection for USB flash drives
  Added a slash before kernel and initrd paths so that grub doesn't complain

I just tested this version on several computers and confirmed working.

Very interesting approach for GRUB4DOS setup on an HDD/USB installed PUP.

I have a question which may require some thought. it pertains to those PUP Live media that use GrRUB4DOS as the means to boot the PC. There are several PUPs which have GRUB4DOS as the method of booting for LiveCDs (Shinobar's International WARY, for example)

• Could your GUI tool be used to update, add to, tailor, or create a replacement for the Menu.lst on the multi-session LiveCD?
• Or, could it just create a new Menu.lst where I can manually replace the existing one on the CD?
• Can this tool's GUI be tailored to create a Menu.lst that boots a PUP ISO file that exist on HDD/USB?

I foresee this being a valuable tool for setup of all GRUBS, especially, if you choose to go forward with GRUB2 GUI as well.

Thanks in advance.

gcmartin wrote:

• Could your GUI tool be used to update or create a replacement for the Menu.lst on the CD?
• Or, could it just create a new Menu.lst where I can replace the existing one on the CD?

Boot Loader Manager doesn't yet support installing to CD's. I will definitely add this support in v1.4.

akash_rawal wrote:

gcmartin wrote:

• Could your GUI tool be used to update or create a replacement for the Menu.lst on the CD?
• Or, could it just create a new Menu.lst where I can replace the existing one on the CD?

Boot Loader Manager doesn't yet support installing to CD's. I will definitely add this support in v1.4.

@Akash_Rawal thanks for your consideration.

Just a note: Shinobar produces the 'International" version of WARY.. For the past year, his WARY boots, first, to a GRUB launch screen. I'm sure he's using a Menu.lst file on the LiveCD. My question is about taking his Menu.lst and modifying it so that I can write it back, modified, to the Live media using something like this.

Hope this helps

Hi, have added your program to the wiki at:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/BootLoaderManager

Upgraded to version 2.0, see first post.
Changelog:

• Entire GUI showing code is rewritten, entire flow of program has been changed
  Added experimental support for CDs and DVDs
  Added support to create and edit individual config files

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gcmartin wrote:Can this tool's GUI be tailored to create a Menu.lst that boots a PUP ISO file that exist on HDD/USB?

There is no direct support, but if you know the commands you can type in the commands using GUI, something like this, when editable list of OSes are displayed:

darkcity wrote:Hi, have added your program to the wiki at:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/BootLoaderManager

Thanks.
Also note that the program also works in puppy 4.3, but it may not work in older puppies because of too old gtk.