Grub1 and Grub2: openSUSE and Ubuntu 10.04

**gminnerup** · 17-Apr-2010, 05:27

I have finally got rid of dualbooting Vista and replaced Vista with Ubuntu 10.04 beta for a peek at the competition while waiting for openSUSE 11.3. The previous set-up was that I used EasyBCD to load openSUSE from its own hard drive (sdc), and I also still have 11.1 on sdb, while Vista lived on sda.
Now what I did was simply to install Ubuntu on sda to replace Vista and all worked fine. Ubuntu's Grub2 picked up the SUSE installation fine, but it's very ugly and visually very untidy when booting SUSE, still my default boot, so I decided to use YaST to edit the SUSE Grub, add Ubuntu to it (using swerdna's symlinks method), and tell YaST to write the bootloader to sda.
That didn't work, as the next reboot still picked up Ubuntu's Grub2 menu. How do I move grub1 from the boot partition of sdc to the MBR on sda, replacing Grub2, i.e. boot Ubuntu from SUSE's bootloader menu?

**caf4926** · 17-Apr-2010, 05:38

You could follow this:
Re-Install Grub Quickly with Parted Magic - openSUSE Forums

If SUSE is in a logical partition, you may need to put the flag on the extended, but it should work either way IIRC.

Grub 2 though is sweet at picking up other distros. I have used it and you can pretty it up if you like.

**gminnerup** · 17-Apr-2010, 07:02

Thanks for that. I have a bootable PartedMagic but I assume any live CD or the SUSE DVD in recovery mode will do?
Before I do this, though, I'm still curious to learn why YaST couldn't do it. It has written the new menu but not to sda, overwriting Grub2, but presumably to sdc.
The other thing I'm curious about is the possibility of going into BIOS and making sdc the first boot disk. Am I right that this would mean the new Grub menu would work from sdc, and would Ubuntu and openSUSE 11.1 on the other drives be affected by the changed order (as Windows would have been)?

**gminnerup** · 17-Apr-2010, 07:05

Originally Posted by caf4926

Grub 2 though is sweet at picking up other distros. I have used it and you can pretty it up if you like.

Yes, I understand it can be prettified but the menu itself is not the problem - once the default is set to 3 seconds or so you hardly see it anyway. But it boots SUSE in a very ugly fashion, running the boot commands in a huge font (low screen resolution) rather than hiding them behind a splash screen. The same at shutdown.

**caf4926** · 17-Apr-2010, 07:19

Thanks for that. I have a bootable PartedMagic but I assume any live CD or the SUSE DVD in recovery mode will do?

True, any will do.
Assuming it uses grub legacy not grub 2 (I think I'm correct in that)

Yes, I understand it can be prettified but the menu itself is not the problem - once the default is set to 3 seconds or so you hardly see it anyway. But it boots SUSE in a very ugly fashion, running the boot commands in a huge font (low screen resolution) rather than hiding them behind a splash screen. The same at shutdown.

A workaround to that is to give grub 2 a pointer to the suse menu.lst with the configfile version

Eg;

title openSUSE 11.2
root (hd0,7)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst

That will then give you your suse menu and splash

**gminnerup** · 17-Apr-2010, 21:34

Sorted now by the initially suggested method, from the SUSE DVD rescue command line. Interestingly, the "find" command failed to find the menu.lst, so I went straight into hd2,0 where I knew it was and ran setu (hd0). All working now, nice SUSE menu with the Ubuntu option, and it works.
Must say I'm impressed with how quickly Ubuntu 10.04 boots. About ten seconds from Grub, as once promised (with autologin). Hope 11.3 can emulate that...

**caf4926** · 17-Apr-2010, 21:38

Good news. Sorry I wasn't much help.

**gminnerup** · 17-Apr-2010, 21:42

Originally Posted by caf4926

Good news. Sorry I wasn't much help.

But you were, by pointing me in the right direction. And as always, I've lernt a lot about Grub that way. Thanks again.

**caf4926** · 17-Apr-2010, 21:48

Originally Posted by gminnerup

But you were, by pointing me in the right direction. And as always, I've lernt a lot about Grub that way. Thanks again.

Oh OK
Strange that 'find' didn't pick up the menu though?
I'm just installing Ub* 10.04 in a sandbox

**gminnerup** · 17-Apr-2010, 21:57

Originally Posted by caf4926

Oh OK
Strange that 'find' didn't pick up the menu though?

Yes, that was odd. Nor did YaST in my first attempt pick up Ubuntu.

I'm just installing Ub* 10.04 in a sandbox

My interest in it has been rekindled by finally deciding that, nice as it is, KDE4 isn't for me (problems with dual monitor support) and (reluctantly) planning a return to Gnome. So I'll play around with their latest LTS until 11.3 comes out, and then choose between them as the better Gnome distro. With KDE, it was no contest.