Cannot boot M6 in system that already has 11.3 and other OS's

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi,

Tonight I tried installing M6 in a multiboot laptop that already has Win7, openSUSE 11.3 and other Linuxes. Suse 11.3 controls GRUB bootloader. In configuring bootloader for M6, I set (Grub) bootloader to boot from its own root partition only and chose to “disable booting from MBR”. When I rebooted the laptop, I still saw the original Grub menu and everything else remained the same as before, ie. I was able to boot every other OS’s EXCEPT M6.

Should I also have enabled booting from MBR?

Thanks in advance for your advice or suggestions.

2

You added an entry for M6?

3

Hi caf4926,

Are you asking if I am adding M6 as an additional entry to the GRUB menu of the original opensuse 11.3? If so, no. I was trying to physically install M6 into a new partition in the existing multiboot system to try it out. I suppose if I were successful I would see M6 being automatically added to the GRUB menu.

4

So I did not get openSUSE 11.4 to boot either due to a grub dependency issue called libc.so.6, but I just copied its menu.lst entry and added it to my openSUSE 11.3 menu.lst file and it worked just fine. In fact, the installation did not complete until I started it from the openSUSE 11.3 menu. Here is what openSUSE 11.4 created for me that I had to move. You must modify the root (hd0,1) for the correct location and I would assume the drive designations would already be correct:

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop -- openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 6 of 6 - 2.6.37-20
    root **(hd0,1)**
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37-20-desktop root=**/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAJS-00TKA0_WD-WCAPW3808685-part2** resume=**/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD5000AAJS-00TKA0_WD-WCAPW3808685-part1** splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x346
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.37-20-desktop

Entries shown in bold must match your setup. I later added the kernel load option nomodeset for my video.

Thank You,

5

The only copy of GRUB that will be effective will either be in the MBR (where Microsoft can tamper with it) or in the /boot directory of the boot partition. To properly share GRUB (or LILO) in a multi-boot system I would use a separate boot partition.

As your boot partition seems to be the root partition of the 11.3 install; you could boot into 11.3, and then use
YaST > System > Boot Loader > Other > Propose New Configuration
With a little luck You should find entries for all of your operating systems. Otherwise it is simpler to mount the 11.4 root partition, open the 11.4 boot/grub/menu.lst in an editor, copy the entries to the bottom of the 11.3 /boot/grub/menu.lst. Then use YaST to check that the boot menu looks reasonable before rebooting.

6

@jdmcdaniel3

due to a grub dependency issue called libc.so.6
libc.so.6 is part of glibc. As the glibc versions are differnt between 11.3 and 11.4, I would guess that you were somewhow mixing GRUBs between 11.3 and 11.4.

7

libc.so.6 is part of glibc. As the glibc versions are differnt between 11.3 and 11.4, I would guess that you were somewhow mixing GRUBs between 11.3 and 11.4.
Actually, I stuck in a different hard drive and pointed the complete install of openSUSE 11.4 M6 to it, not allowing it to copy to any other drive. Now, the DVD has a big problem and required that I create a DVD-DL disk, all due to an error in its creation before it was posted. The fact that I got the Grub error could be due to the defective DVD or perhaps it is a real problem with openSUSE 11.4 M6. Who knows for sure but after I got it to install, I was able to upgrade these packages and fix grub without error.

Thank You,

8

During the installation of any Linux distro, I always choose the /boot or / (root) partition for the new Grub bootloader location.

Many times the new entry is missing from the Grub menu. To remedy this I would boot using the existing openSUSE Grub menu. Additional steps to use are shown below:

  • Navigate to Yast → System → BootLoader
  • Select the Section Management tab
  • Click once on the Other button & choose “Propose and Merge with Existing GRUB Menus”

This may take a minute. Usually it will search other Grub menus on the disk. The entries will display the name or version number of the kernel.

You can edit them to your liking. Once finished, click on the “OK” button to confirm any changes to the Grub menu.

Sometimes it may not work. If that happens, more advanced editing will be required.

Remember to have fun!

Romanator

9

During the installation of any Linux distro, I always choose the /boot or / (root) partition for the new Grub bootloader location.

Many times the new entry is missing from the Grub menu. To remedy this I would boot using the existing openSUSE Grub menu. Additional steps to use are shown below:

  • Navigate to Yast –> System –> BootLoader
  • Select the Section Management tab
  • Click once on the Other button & choose “Propose and Merge with Existing GRUB Menus”

This may take a minute. Usually it will search other Grub menus on the disk. The entries will display the name or version number of the kernel.

You can edit them to your liking. Once finished, click on the “OK” button to confirm any changes to the Grub menu.

Sometimes it may not work. If that happens, more advanced editing will be required.

Remember to have fun!

Romanator
That is a very good suggestion there Romanator as I often overlook this ability. You win my golden star award today (gold not included) for your very good suggestion!

Thank You,

10

Hi Romanator,

I followed your suggestion then saw Grub menu showing both openSUSE 11.3 and 11.4_M6 but somehow no Unbuntu and Windows 7. Re-installed M6 but this time selected a configuration that allows mounting Windows drive and enabling booting from (Windows’) MBR as well. Rebooted, but clicked on the wrong choice of Windows (Windows 7 Pre-Release) so I got Grub error 22. Re-installed again! This time there’s a warning that the boot loader is not below 128 GB. I then decided to install M6 into the partition of existing openSUSE 11.3 to overwrite it. I had to add booting stanza (?) for Ubuntu to opensuse 11.4’s grub.menu.lst. Other than the screen refreshes itself (turning off and on) every few minutes in M6, Windows7, Ubuntu and Fedora boot fine.

I guess I will wait until the final release of 11.4 before selecting the sources and doing online software update.