Can one install 11.4 with NO bootloader?

Playing on a test rig here and I want to install openSUSE in an already multi-boot Ubuntu family environment. All the 'Buntus play together nicely with grub 1.89, learning the ins-and-outs of which appears to be a lifetime endeavor.

SUSE appears to be still on legacy grub, and I don’t want that to take over from (almost) grub 2.0. It’s fairly trivial to add things to the newer grub. Question is can I install SUSE and tell it NOT to install a bootloader at all? Thanks!

Yes but you should not. You should install Grub in openSUSE root partition and explicitely prevent openSUSE setup to write a generic boot code into MBR. It does that by default and indeed, it would ruin Ubuntu’s Grub2.

During the installation of openSUSE it will show you an overview page where
you can select where the bootloader is installed, it shows two lines MBR and
the root partition.
Simply deactivate both and it should be fine.


PC: oS 11.3 64 bit | Intel Core2 Quad Q8300@2.50GHz | KDE 4.6.1 | GeForce
9600 GT | 4GB Ram
Eee PC 1201n: oS 11.4 64 bit | Intel Atom 330@1.60GHz | KDE 4.6.0 | nVidia
ION | 3GB Ram

On 2011-04-19 00:36, nbday1 wrote:

>
> SUSE appears to be still on legacy grub, and I don’t want that to take
> over from (almost) grub 2.0. It’s fairly trivial to add things to the
> newer grub. Question is can I install SUSE and tell it NOT to install a
> bootloader at all? Thanks!

Just tell it to install its grub in its own root partition, and do not
touch mbr.

Then you can either add entries for suse kernel in ubunt’s grub, or
chainload one from the other.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

http://www.unixversal.com/linux/opensuse/images/opensuse_vm_install43.jpg

  • The active flag doesn’t matter
  • When the setup reboots, you will see the Ubuntu boot menu. You’ll have to run update-grub
    under Ubuntu to add the openSUSE boot entry, then reboot and select openSUSE.

That’s it.

I have been through the same troubles, and after reading something somewhere on the internet, I followed a procedure, and got it working finally. But it had been 2 months ago, I forgot what I did to solve it. >:( I am trying to recall.

However, you are right, I used the DO NOT INSTALL GRUB option during installation, because it would otherwise zap the Ubuntu GRUB2 away, that is nasty.

I have entries in my GRUB2 ** /boot/grub/grub.cfg** to boot open SuSE 11.4, but like I said earlier, I remember that this alone did not work, I read some article which came up after searching google, and I followed it, and got it to work only after that.

I can share my working ** /boot/grub/grub.cfg** here:


menuentry "SuSE 11.4, with 2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop  (on /dev/sdf6)" {
        set gfxmode=1680x1050
        set gfxpayload=keep
        insmod raid
        insmod mdraid
        insmod gfxterm
        insmod vbe
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod ext2
        set root='(/dev/sdd,msdos5)'
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 61a9e3b8-09c0-42bd-adf1-ce4b152f8411
        linux /vmlinuz-2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop root=UUID=a9a93efe-4e1f-455a-bf65-0ecfe93838ad splash=silent showopts
        initrd /initrd-2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop
}
menuentry "SuSE 11.4, with 2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop (recovery mode)  (on /dev/sdf6)" {
        set gfxmode=1680x1050
        set gfxpayload=keep  
        insmod raid
        insmod mdraid
        insmod gfxterm
        insmod vbe
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod ext2
        set root='(/dev/sdd,msdos5)'
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 61a9e3b8-09c0-42bd-adf1-ce4b152f8411
        linux /vmlinuz-2.6.37.1-1.2-desktop root=/dev/sdf6 showopts apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 nomodeset x11failsafe
        initrd /initrd-2.6.3.7.1-1.2-desktop
}


Pse not that my 2nd part the (recovery mode) actually persistently kernel panics, I suspect that I have to tweak showopts apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 nomodeset x11failsafe some of these pissed off GRUB2, or some of GRUB2’s environment pissed of SuSE 11.4 kernel. It did not mount my root=/dev/sdf6, I am still debugging, but not to aggressively because the top entry shown above already boots me to GUI nicely.

11.4 troubled boots

I have a thread above indicating issues I had been through including this GRUB.