Grub 2 can't find Leap 15 install. Triple boot - Win 7 KDE Neon (Ubuntu 18.04) and Leap 15.

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Soooo. This is the second time that I have installed OpenSuse Leap 15 on my tower computer. I already have Win 7 and KDE Neon (Ubuntu 18.08) installed and have installed latest OpenSuse Leap 15 on /dev/sdd. I directed that Grub 2 be installed on /dev/sdd MBR as I already have Grub 2 functioning well with Win 7 and KDE Neon. Unfortunately, $ sudo update-grub (when in KDE Neon) doesn’t find the OpenSuse install and bootloader.

The first OpenSuse install was one large / btrfs partition.

Current partition scheme for OpenSuse is:
/ btrfs 20 GiB
swap 2 GiB
/home xfs 800+ GiB

ASRock UEFI motherboard running in legacy mode.

I haven’t been using Linux for some time, so I am a bit rusty. Any ideas?

2

Apparently you are using the GRUB2 installed from KDE Neon: that might not be able to read the BTRFS filesystem as installed by Leap.
Boot to the installed Leap using the installer disk (use the “Boot installed Linux System” option) and then (re-)install GRUB from there.
The openSUSE GRUB should be able to find all your installed systems.

3

To add: 20GB for a btrfs root fs is by far too small. A couple of snapshots and it will be filled. As documented and proposed you need at least 40GB.

4

… So, if you need to stick to 20 GiB, then choose ext4 instead of BTRFS for your root partition.

5

Many thanks for the replies. The size of the btrfs file system for / is duly noted. I thought that I had read to make sure a btrfs file system was as small as possible, but when the snapshots are stored on it, perhaps I should ask what the upper limit for the size of a btrfs partition should be.

I ran $ sudo fdisk -l in KDE Neon to see what I could find there. Interestingly, rather than the / btrfs partition being bootable, my /home xfs partition has been set as bootable. The / was specified in the expert partition tool as the partition for the operating system, while my /home partition was specified as a “data” partition. Did I miss something in the installer? The OpenSuse installer is completely new to me, but I think I would have noticed a section to specify which partition is bootable… Perhaps this is the reason that my KDE Neon Grub 2 can’t find a bootable OpenSuse system?

6

Totally depends on how you boot, MBR or EFI. MBR may or may not use the boot flag depending on how you set it up (ie Grub on MBR or Grub on Boot) MBR code on boot fand EFI boot ignore any boot flags set. Only generic boot code on MBR uses the boot flag.

There is no upper limit on the BTRFS size except fo the obvious max for the FS which is very large.

It also depends on what you are doing. If you have a large database operation and have not moved the DB’s from root then you need that space. Though best practices says move any DB stuff off root.

7

Grub 2 was installed on the MBR in legacy mode. That is why I find it odd that /home was given the boot flag.

8

Please, can you insert the installer DVD, choose “More…” then “Boot Linux System” and then select the newly installed Leap?
If you succeed booting that way, chances are that the Neon GRUB is not able to find the kernel installed in the BTRFS partition.
Then if you insist on using that version of grub, either you reinstall Leap using an EXT4 partition or you ask for help in the Neon Forum…

9

Note as said above if Grub is installed in MBR then no boot flag is used ie it does not use the boot flag since it know which partition to boot. The boot flag only counts if generic/Windows boot code is in the MBR

10

OK, both the install location and the kernel for Leap 15 are found using your instructions, however the system is unable to boot.

11

Can you be more specific? At what point / with what error messages does it stop booting?
Can you describe your hardware in more detail? For instance, what graphics card does it use? Have you reviewed the Release Notes, for instance in the driver section available here?
Your system might have two problems:

  1. a “foreign” GRUB not finding the Leap installation;
  2. problematic hardware and/or something wrong in the Leap install itself.
    In my view, if you are able to boot Leap via the installer DVD one way or the other, problem 1) can be easily solved.
12

It never starts booting. After having chosen the newly installed system and kernel, I get a red ncurses window stating that booting isn’t possible…

Motherboard: ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.

Graphics card: Nvidia Ge Force GT 1030

13

Mmmm… AMD chipset and Nvidia graphics, I would not be surprised to find out that this is a problematic situation. I hope that other members with more experience with that combination jump in to help.
Standing by for now, sorry.

14

Had no problems here but with older chips. FX6300 (no on board GPU) and GT630 GPU (Like because no fan)

But this seems more like an install problem rather than a video problem

Perhaps show fdisk -l

That board would have UEFI (BIOS) thus you may have installed the other OS EFI not MBR and different boot modes do not mix

15

If you upload output from bootinfoscript run from Neon somewhere such as https://susepaste.org maybe someone here can provide a useful specific recommendation how to proceed. Four potentially bootable (sda,sdb,sdc,sdd) devices is fraught with potential obstacles to boot success.