Does anyone know RPM repository where I can get GRUB install that has option to put it on PBR of the Linux root partition rather than in MBR? In fact it does not have to be in RPM butt at least tar or tgz format binary that I can run from sh ./install or sh ./configure and like.
I am having a hard time understanding SUSE 11 distribution forcibly install GRUB into MBR. Why not give us an option to put it on it’s root partition PBR as it did on earlier versions Otherwise Linux is useless in my case. My point is that it does not hurt to ask for help. In 2000, I emailed Caldera asking why their 2.4 distribution did not show any drives beyond sdd even though devfs directory already had sde sdf sdg files and way beyond. They did correct this at the next release 3.1.
In the following scenarii, GRUB in MBR is even harmful.
When Linux or Unix boot partition is installed on second or third disk.
When you have a commercial boot loader installed prior to Linux or Unix, then GBUB on MBR would not work together, whether the commercial boot loader has self defence feature turned on to recover original MBR from it’s archive or not (killing GRUB in one single boot). On other SCSI systems I used, GRUB in PBR has always worked well together with commercial boot loaders when OS had option to put GRUB on PBR rather than MBR like Redhat 9 or prior and most versions of Caldera did. Unfortunately those versions do not work with SATA II disks nor nVidia geForce display card. Browser support choice on 2.4 .x kernel is getting scarce as well.
When user need to change BIOS control of disk channel hierarchy with mainstream i82801GB embedded PCI-E SATA II/ATA133 block device controller, sice GRUB does not write grub.conf in accordance with Unix PCI-E physical root bridge hierarchy e.g., c0t0d0p0 (controller ID – target ID – disk ID – partition ID) system no longer able to boot linux. If it did, GRUB caused no problem since it won’t be fooled by apparent hierarchy modified by presence of additional disk attached to ATA side bus after filling up two SATA II space. The GRUB sees if ATA is absent then SATA 0 become hd0. Subsequent addition of one disk on ATA channel side makes original SATA 0 appear as hd1 to GRUB. Then all Unix or Linux become unbootable without help of more sophisticated commercial boot loader. True physical hierarchy always is given to how closely the interface resembles to ansi st506, therefore ATA takes precedence over SATA and SCSI. I can not fight over ansi registered hierarchy based on historic dates of invention or patent registry.
Please kindly help by guiding how to put GRUB on PBR.
That would be a great help. I can edit fstab, mtab, grub.conf menu.lst from CD boot and OS loaded to a ram disk then mounting any partition without any problem. I also know how to put back 512 byte MBR/PBR/EPBR pages from saved images thereof from floppy using dd or debug or disksave because I keep CHS table and sector number records on a spreadsheet per disk basis. Plus I have changed all files exist in Linux to 777 for easy external edit when mounted from floppy or CD boot. I even noticed original unix su command no longer seem to work and sudo –v seems to be necessary in lieu of su- or su. on modern Linux. So many changes I can not keep up with them.
Pinecloud
System
Attempted to install SUSE but GRUB
location makes causing problem.
Dell Dimension Intel Dual Core 3 GHz
945 chip set – socket 775
2GB Memory
two 300GB SATA II disks
one 74GB ATA 133 disk
one DVD RW ATA133
nVidea 6600GT
The system already has
NT, XP, Solaris10 all already
working with System Commander 8.21