Re: [opensuse] Installation Woes

On 14/02/12 15:47, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2012/02/13 22:20 (GMT-0600) Billie Walsh composed:

Felix Miata wrote:

In the mean time, getting *buntu into the openSUSE Grub menu requires no more
than adding two short lines to a plain text config file (with any plain text
editor), /boot/grub/menu.lst:

title Ubuntu
chainloader (hd0,1)+1

would do it if the buntu partition is the second partition on the first HD.

Doesn't work. It just pops back to the Grub screen. I suspect there's
something missing.

I didn't go far enough in that reply. Afterward in another thread I did:

Unless you force it otherwise, *buntu always installs Grub to the MBR only, which for most *buntu installs means there is no Grub2 on its / partition, and thus chainloading to it won't do anything.

You'll need to create a full stanza in openSUSE's menu.lst to load *buntu's kernel and initrd just as if it was loading an openSUSE kernel/initrd. Just follow the pattern used for the openSUSE kernels, but adjust the actual kernel name to what actually exists, initrd name, (disk/partition) numbers, and root=[device name,partition label,UUID,deviceID] for its / partition and give that a try. If it fails likely there's some additional cmdline argument you'll have to dig out of /boot/grub/grub.cfg stanzas on the *buntu / partition.

Once you manage to get *buntu to boot the first time, sometime before doing any updates on it, you'll need to reconfigure it to install Grub2 to only its / partition, in part so that updates won't foul your openSUSE boot configuration, and other part so it's own bootloader config can be functionally kept up to date when its new kernels are installed and initrds updated.

Don't forget, menu.lst is just a form of scripting. Once you understand the meaning of the contents of menu.lst, you can use that knowledge to do anything required to get any partition to boot using the Grub shell instead of menu.lst. IOW, without any advance planning or config file editing, you could exit the openSUSE Grub menu immediately to the Grub shell, locate *buntu's kernel and initrd, load them, and boot *buntu.

Felix, Billie has already stated that he is no guru - and all he ever wants now is to simply install a system and *use* it rather than go around fart-arsing around with it.

I suggest that you give Billie a clearly written out menu.lst, for example, with which he can replace his current one but *after* he makes a copy of his current one to fall-back on if things go belly up.


Aspire to inspire before you expire.

To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx