Hi all! I’ve installed Ubuntu because i needed a system to read .deb packages, but now i’ve got a big problem: i can’t boot Opensuse because grub doesn’t show it… I’ve searched and tried some commands on the web, but the situation doesn’t change. Any ideas?
Hi
Well a deb file is just an archive which can be opened in any linux OS or extracted…
So when you installed, did it show openSUSE as an additional operating system, else it’s like over written the openSUSE bootloader/mbr etc or is this system booting UEFI?
This not unusually happens when one distro is installed in UEFI mode and the other is in Legacy/MBR mode. If you can upload output from bootinfoscript to http://susepaste.org/ or http://pastebin.com/ or equivalent and provide its URL here we can see if this is what happened and offer a plan to correct it.
Note that there are ways to read .deb packages from openSUSE, such as “entering” them with mc.
Et voilà https://susepaste.org/34144324
I have not run into that problem, as long as both were installed to use grub for booting.
There is more likely to be a problem with the Ubuntu installed grub package having problems accessing “btrfs” on the openSUSE system.
So the Ubuntu installer wiped all openSUSE’s UEFI files from the sda5 ESP partition? How did all the Ubuntu stanzas get onto openSUSE’s sda3? It seems there’s more to this story than has been told.
I haven’t seen Ubuntu use BTRFS before, nor a UEFI system using an MBR disk, nor an ESP on a logical partition.
mmm all these errors maybe are for my fault… i tried to install Ubuntu many times in different ways hoping it works… how i have to install it? Ext4 in not UEFI mode?
I suggest to try booting the 15.1 installation media and select boot installed system. From there you can run yast bootloader with probe foreign OS selected to add Ubuntu to the openSUSE boot menu, which should also reconfigure openSUSE’s Grub to run at boot instead of Ubuntu’s.
I tried “boot from hard disk” but i receive “error: no such partition” grab rescue>
I don’t think it does. But “grub-mkconfig” on Ubuntu will try to read the openSUSE “grub.cfg” and might be confused by the subvolume structure if “btrfs” is used there.
I have see Ubuntu fail to boot another Ubuntu. This was with UEFI. The second Ubuntu was KDE Neon, which installs with “xfs”. And the first Ubuntu could not read the “xfs”. This was due to secure-boot. The Ubuntu “shim” package did not include support for “xfs”. The grub menu did have an “insmod” to fix that, but their shim package blocks that “insmod” if secure-boot is on. Turning off secure-boot did allow it to boot.
…, nor a UEFI system using an MBR disk, nor an ESP on a logical partition.
I have that on a USB external hard drive. I have not tried it with an internal drive. I suppose I could test that on a KVM virtual machine.
I am sticking to the following and never experienced problems:
- Make sure all your systems are uefi.
- Use grub on openSUSE as your bootloader
You may consider turning off os-prober and configure chain loading:
erlangen:~ # cat /etc/grub.d/40_custom
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry 'Tumbleweed /dev/sdb5 - BTRFS' {
search --fs-uuid --no-floppy --set=root 4A24-B10D
chainloader /EFI/opensuse/grubx64.efi
}
menuentry 'Arch Linux /dev/sdb2' {
search --fs-uuid --no-floppy --set=root 4A24-B10D
chainloader /EFI/arch/grubx64.efi
}
menuentry 'Fedora 29 /dev/nvme0n1p1' {
search --fs-uuid --no-floppy --set=root 6DEC-64F9
chainloader /EFI/fedora/grubx64.efi
}
erlangen:~ #
In reality i’m not sure about Opensuse installation is EFI or not… how can i check that?
Another simple try: if i reinstall Ubuntu on a primary partition the problem will solve? Or it will continue to not recognize xfs and btrfs?
Sorry but i have not understood how to use the Opensuse grub to boot 
what i have to do?
Try to boot your installed systems from BIOS/UEFI boot screen. With the systems up and running check for directory:
erlangen:~ # ll /sys/firmware/efi/
total 0
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Oct 26 11:38 config_table
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Oct 26 08:54 efivars
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Oct 26 11:38 fw_platform_size
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Oct 26 11:38 fw_vendor
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Oct 26 11:38 runtime
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 0 Oct 26 10:39 runtime-map
-r-------- 1 root root 4096 Oct 26 11:38 systab
drwxr-xr-x 57 root root 0 Oct 26 10:39 vars
erlangen:~ #
If system runs in BIOS mode the folder does not exist or is empty. Reinstall or convert to UEFI: Linux on UEFI: A Quick Installation Guide
You should make clear for yourself and for all others here:
- if your system uses UEFI or legacy (BIOS) boot. All systems installed should use the same method. It is not something you can decide during installation. It is fixed upon you by the BIOS/UEFI firmware of the system (and when the system does use UEFI, it is possible that you can switch that to legacy in the BIOS, but why should you?). And remind that you have to use the same method allways, also on booting the installation device. BTW, when the system is UEFI and thus you booted the installation device with UEFI, openSUSE will “automagicaly” be installed using UEFI.
- Is the disk where you want to install on old school MS-DOS/MBR, or GPT? Most here presume it is GPT (because that goes with UEFI), but now you talk about a “primary partition”, something that only exists in MS-DOS/MBR partitioning.
And take care, as far as I see it, you are having problems with an Ubuntu installation after which you do not have openSUSE in your Grub menu, but that Grub menu is then installed by Ubuntu (the last installation you did), and thus this is more an Ubuntu question. There are of course people here that also have eperience with Ubuntu, but this is an openSUSE forums and that is where you can expect knowledge of.
It’s in the bootinfoscript output, e.g. in the fstabs. In Ubuntu’s fstab, the ESP sda5 partition is mounted. In openSUSE’s, there is no ESP present. Also, the ESP partition contains Ubuntu boot files, but no openSUSE boot files. So, quite clearly, Ubuntu is in UEFI mode, and openSUSE is not in UEFI mode.
I was not thinking clearly when I made my comment #8 reply. Sorry.
So guys, i made a drastic but funtionally choice: made a backup of importants things, remove all O.S., creating a new GPT partition, and installed both systems. Now i’m using Opensuse’s grub2. It didn’t seen Ubuntu at first, but with
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
(taked from Nrickert post in another thread) all work fine.
I just want to express a constructive opinion, not a polemic: i think that getting work two linux distributions on the same pc, Ubuntu and Opensuse, is also an Opensuse problem, and i asked here because i know that i can find prepared people on Opensuse, yes, but also on Linux. If you don’t know what to do in my situation, just learn from who know something about it whithout critics, you absolutely are not forced to answer this topic :)… i think this forum should be an important source of knowledge in generally.
Thanks to all!!!
I think you misunderstood me. The only thing I want is to help. And in this case I had the idea that you might get better help in an Ubuntu forum. Maybe in combination with the help you get here. Thus I explained that the last install created the Grub you are asking about and that people here may have less knowledge about how Grub is used by Ubuntu. After all distributions are different and do things different. That is the very reason why there are different distributions. When they were all the same, maybe only the best forum would then decide what distro to use ;).
Maybe i misunderstood the real meaning of your message. If it so i’m sorry 
All fine. Most important you have things now running as you want them.