“Every time” I install OpenSuSE on a multiboot system I will be trapped with the “hidden” boot loader options which set the active flag at the boot partition. :’(
Situation:
windows bootloader is used.
sda1: Windows (primary)
…
sda5: linux swap
sda6: linux root
…
Now I choose boot loader location “root partition” which is a logical drive on an extended partition. I overlook the boot loader options and forget certainly to remove the superfluous “active flag”. After reboot the boot will fail because the SuSE grub installation sets the active flag to the extended partition. >:(
First question: Do there exist any reason to make an extended partition as active boot partition? Which boot loader needs and works with an active flag on an extended partition?
Second question: Neither SuSE installation nor an installation of a Debian based Linux distribution recognizes and integrates each other in their grub menu. Both installation integrates Windows in grub menu but not the other Linux distribution. :sarcastic: What is the reason?
Third question: Debians grub v0.97 is not able to boot the SuSE 11 linux. It shows “Error 2: Bad file or directory type”. :shame: What is the reason?
Active flag is needed for generic boot code, which load primary partition which have set active flag. So if you have your grub installed to extended partition, then you need have active flag on it. Second reason is that some hardware must have at least one partition marked as active, otherwise denied boot.
Second question: Neither SuSE installation nor an installation of a Debian based Linux distribution recognizes and integrates each other in their grub menu. Both installation integrates Windows in grub menu but not the other Linux distribution. :sarcastic: What is the reason?
If both have grub for booting, then opensuse recognize debian (ubuntu, redhat). If not then it is bug and you should add it to bugzilla with logs.
Third question: Debians grub v0.97 is not able to boot the SuSE 11 linux. It shows “Error 2: Bad file or directory type”. :shame: What is the reason?
TIA, Ron.
That I don’t know, problem can be on both side (debian or suse).
You say it “primary partition”. But Grub is installed to the root partition i.e. in my case to a logical drive. IMHO changing the active flag from the primary Windows partition to the extended partition is always wrong and installation shouldn’t do such obvious wrong settings. I don’t know if there is any boot loader which can handle such (wrong) settings.
Both uses Grub v0.97. Maybe Debian installation doesn’t recognized it cause of the same reason like 3rd question.
Debian Grub was able to boot SuSE 10 but not SuSE 11. Another peculiarity is that an old linux live cd is not able to mount the SuSE 11 partitions (root, home - both ext3 created by SuSE 11 installation).
OK, then I think I know answer to your third problem, our grub have patch that allow inode size bigger then 128 and as default we use for ext3 256 (in 11). If debian grub doesn’t have this patch, it cannot boot it.
Second is strange, please fill bug report, this should work.
and first problem… I think you install to extended partition (/dev/sda1-4) not to logical (more then 4). Boot from logical partition is not easy, you must chainload from primary partition or from MBR. But if you doesn’t uncheck write generic code to MBR, you have MBR which cannot boot to logical partition. Active flag is used to say generic MBR where chainload…and if you chainload to grub and select windows, it have makeactive in its section and it works good for windows.
I.e. SuSE 11 creates incompatible ext3 file systems? Do you know the reason for this - strange - change?
Maybe I’m wrong but I thought primary partitions has got sda1-4. Root partition is sda6 i.e. a logical partition. Of course chainloading with Windows bootloader is done. The reason is this grub confusion: not able to boot SuSE 11 and no automatic integration, distribution differences hda/sda… After some wasted hours I gave up and I decided to use Windows bootloader only because I know what to do to get it run.
That’s true if grub is installed to a primary partition but not to a logical partition (my case). That’s the point. I expect that in my case the active flag should be unchecked by the installer and not checked. Every time I forgot to uncheck this option because it is not visible at the same page where I choose grub location.
