How many people can not boot openSUSE with legacy grub?

English Install/Boot/Login
1

In the mail list devs are arguing that people that can not boot with legacy
grub are a minority, that grub 2 is not a priority. They raised hell when I
told them that we had to tell users to install a small Ubuntu in order to
boot openSUSE, like when they have EFI bios or a GPT partition table, or a
3 TiB disk… More or less they think I’m stupid, that we should instead
explain how to manually install grub2 or elilo.

And that anyway, there is no problem, because people with problems are
negligible.

Help!

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

2

Carlos E. R. wrote:

>
> In the mail list devs are arguing that people that can not boot with
> legacy grub are a minority, that grub 2 is not a priority. They raised
> hell when I told them that we had to tell users to install a small Ubuntu
> in order to boot openSUSE, like when they have EFI bios or a GPT partition
> table, or a 3 TiB disk… More or less they think I’m stupid, that we
> should instead explain how to manually install grub2 or elilo.
>
> And that anyway, there is no problem, because people with problems are
> negligible.
>

I have not problems boot from normal hard disks. But grub2 is very
useful booting from USB hard disks, because grub2 can use disk-id
and partition label.

–
Viljo

3

Actually Carlos, I have no problem - though it would have been messed up on my box (which has multipleHD’s), but I dug deep during the install to make sure and made adjustments. But I support a move to grub2 and agree with your assessment

4

I use Grub legacy. It’s easy, it works and I can make changes when I need to. Grub 2 is far too complicated and I’m not sure why it needs to be when all it’s doing is loading an operating system.
Incidentally I keep my /boot folder ona small ext3 partition.

5

On 2011-12-10 19:46, caf4926 wrote:
>
> Actually Carlos, I have no problem - though it would have been messed up
> on my box (which has multipleHD’s), but I dug deep during the install to
> make sure and made adjustments. But I support a move to grub2 and agree
> with your assessment

I know that grub legacy work for most people, but we also know that here
now and then pop up cases where legacy simply does not work. I need links
to those posts, or better, people that volunteer and go “up” to the mail
list and tell them our needs. They do not believe that there are people
needing grub2.

Some people had to install ubuntu in order to use it to boot openSUSE.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

6

Okay - of course people are going to have their own opinions on this, but I offer this:

I’d like to see grub2 for booting btrfs without needing a separate /boot

Heck, I’d like to be able to boot an LVM OpenSuse install without needing /boot.

(While a separate /boot can sometimes be nice, there really is little need for it today. Unless, as with Suse’s suggested LVM your boot loader needs it because it can’t boot LVM. In which case it often suggests a pitifully small /boot)

Grub2 (Grub 1.99) now supports btrfs and ZFS.

If OpenSuse wants to fully integrate btrfs, I think Grub2 might be the best route. I can’t imagine enforcing the user use an ext3 /boot, so as to use grub, so as to be able to boot their OS when they could just use Grub2? Why all the extra boot baggage? Call me silly but an OS should use a boot loader that allows it to boot without needing a /boot - it’s not the 1990s anymore.

Also, since there is no active development of Grub I can’t see staying with it.

I actually like legacy grub - but I think it’s time to move on. We are simply not going to be able to use legacy grub forever, and I see no reason to not move to Grub2 at this point. Doing otherwise simply prolongs the inevitable.

At least give users the option in the installer.

Cheers,
Lews Therin

7

The reason I use an LVM is because I want it encrypted. And an encrypted LVM would probably still require a separate “/boot”.

8

If they switch to Grub2, they won’t be able to write a generic bootcode to MBR to please Windows users - it would be against the old MS/Novell agreement.
Maybe they’ll wait until Grub2 becomes reliable when installed in a partition bootsector. (it might never happen).

I prefer Legacy Grub because it let you rewrite the partition table before booting. Without this feature, I wouldn’t be able to share ufs partitions between different BSDs installled on the same hard disk (I need to change the offset of the first Unix partition to use different disklabels, as well as its partition ID) - although I’m aware that we might be 5 or 6 people in the world making use of this … I might even be the only one. Otherwise … I don’t have problems. lol!

So I prefer Legacy Grub - not for the same reasons, I guess - and I hope they’ll keep it in openSUSE as long as possible. Actually they might try to continue to patch Legacy Grub, as they did in the past.

  • Notice that I boot from Grub2, installed in MBR (because it’s in Ubuntu, Fedora and everything now) - but I chainload Legacy Grub to boot BSD. Obviously Grub2 will make more sense for the vast majority of users … but please do not forget the invisible minority!
9

Obviously Grub2 will make more sense for the vast majority of users … but please do not forget the invisible minority!

I had to note this.

It’s the vast majority that need first consideration. It’s they that will flounder and then just leave with a bad taste in their mouth.
The (as you put it) invisible minority, are probably more than able to use either system presented to them.

It doesn’t take a genius to assimilate the comments on this subject, to know that for the vast majority (many inexperienced) Grub2 has proved to be (as they would put) ‘something that just works’.
IMO, some people need to look outside the box, there is a whole world out there…

10

On 2011-12-11 05:16, caf4926 wrote:
>
>> Obviously Grub2 will make more sense for the vast majority of users …
>> but please do not forget the invisible minority!
> I had to note this.
>
> It’s the vast majority that need first consideration. It’s they that
> will flounder and then just leave with a bad taste in their mouth.
> The (as you put it) invisible minority, are probably more than able to
> use either system presented to them.
>
> It doesn’t take a genius to assimilate the comments on this subject, to
> know that for the vast majority (many inexperienced) Grub2 has proved to
> be (as they would put) ‘something that just works’.
> IMO, some people need to look outside the box, there is a whole world
> out there…

To the openSUSE devs, the vast majority needs legacy grub. There is no
intention at all to implement grub2. There is the suspicion, though, that
the work will be done, sometime in the future, for SLES, and then we will
get it.

So, they raised hell when I told them that here we had to told some users
that they had to install Ubuntu, and use Ubuntu to boot openSUSE. This got
them inflamed, not that there is no support for grub 2 in yast.

As for me, I’m happy with grub legacy, I don’t need version 2. Yet.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

11

You missed the point, Carlos. It’s Ballmer who raises hell … because if openSUSE uses Grub2, that will have two consequences for Windows:

  • it will be installed in MBR and Windows users won’t be happy.
  • it won’t write a generic boot code anymore, and so it won’t brutally and blindly destroy the Grub on another Linux distro that might already be there - most likely Grub2. Remember that it’s about the vast majority who aren’t up to all the tricks!

So openSUSE couldn’t remain the most Windows friendly Linux distro … and someone doesn’t want that to happen.

12

On 2011-12-11 17:46, please try again wrote:
> You missed the point, Carlos. It’s Ballmer who raises hell … because
> if openSUSE uses Grub2, that will have two consequences for Windows:

But that’s not the point I’m trying to address.

I’m trying to show them that here, in the forums, we have threads of people
for which legacy grub simply does not work, and I want to point them to
those threads.

There are several cases on which we told the posters to install Ubuntu to
be able to boot openSUSE. I want to find those.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

13

I know. But if something is technically wrong is has to be politically correct. I keep saying for months … years (?) that whenever openSUSE switchs to Grub2, they will have to reconsider their boot policy.

They must live in another reality if they are not aware of that. Or maybe … they wait until it’s safe to install Grub2 in the extended partition, set the bootflag, bla, bla, bla …

14

On 2011-12-11 20:36, please try again wrote:
> They must live in another reality if they are not aware of that. Or
> maybe … they wait until it’s safe to install Grub2 in the extended
> partition, set the bootflag, bla, bla, bla …

They say to install grub2 manually. Or elilo.

At least yast still knows about lilo, the feature was not removed, but
neither was maintained.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

15

There is also the EFI issue to consider:

https://features.opensuse.org/311043

While I like legacy grub, and use it unless I have reason not to, it is truly getting a bit long in the tooth. It is inevitable that Suse will need to switch to Grub2 as btrfs and EFI become prevalent, which is not going to take long at all. Users will soon be getting Windows systems with EFI - what good will legacy grub be for them then? I don’t see that Suse will be able to still be “Windows Friendly” with legacy grub on a system that ships with EFI?

16

Not sure if this is still relevant here, but I had massive problems with my Opensuse 12.1 64 installation!
Tried to install parallel to W7 on my self build computer with 2TB WD caviar black HD, i2400 CPU and ASUS P8H67-i Mobo. Installation went find until at the end grub could not be installed due to disk read error 25. Tried several times (I succesfully installed with the very same dvd parallel to Windows on two other computers with smaller HDs before) and also tried net install. No success, but the mbr got messed up and partitions could no more be created or resized with normal means (W7 computer managment, gparted etc.). Could partly fix that after several days trial and error. Ended up installing Ubuntu parallel to Opensuse on a small partition. Ubuntu bootloader works without problems!

Google revealed that I am not the only peron with that problem. I would qualify myself as an advanced user. A newbie would probably have failed and would be stuck with a messed up system now. Such problems are in my opinion an absolute no go! Pretty poor showing from Opensuse in that respect.

17

Installing openSUSE on a UEFI system is tricky and only works from DVD (or net install, I guess). It will boot and install elilo (not Legacy Grub!). You can install Grub2 later. The method is decribed in these two articles:

AFAIK , the Ubuntu live CD is the only one which includes a UEFI setup. openSUSE’s, Fedora’s and Mint’s don’t.

18

I’m not entirely new to linux, especially SuSe. I started out a looooong time ago with SuSe 6.1, gradually moved with the distros up till openSuSE 9.3. I’m not a programmer, nor systems specialist, I’m an end user. I use linux for the programs I can not have/use in windows. Dual booting hadn’t been a problem until I wanted to install the latest 12.1.

My old PC running both Win 7 and Ubuntu 10.4 had died beyond repair and was replaced by a brand new one.
I wanted to leave the manufacturers system disk intact (not caring for the MBR, that can be easily fixed), added my old data disk and started the install.

My disklayout is much like a windows user who finally gets around installing linux. First HDD fully partitioned and I didn’t want to use that anyway, second HDD 2TB of which the first 1.5TB was allocated to windows related software data, the remaining 0.5TB at the end of my disk was my Ubuntu 10.4 installation in four primary partitions (default setup of Ubuntu). Since Ubuntu uses grub 2 it ran fine.

At first I tried installing Ubuntu 11.10, but got very annoyed with Unity and the installation of the driver needed for my AMD Radeon HD 6570. Eventually I got it to work with gnome classic, but still not satisfactory.

My plushy chameleon reminded me of which distro I had enjoyed for such a long time and I downloaded openSuSE 12.1
I kept my (ubuntu) home and data partition, had openSuSe install itself in the (formatted) root of what was Ubuntu. That didn’t work of course, the first partition was both primary and above 128GB, thus resulting in grub error 25. Next I moved the root into the extended partition as that was suggested somewhere in the forum as a solution. Again no luck in booting.

I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. I downloaded EaseUS partition manager (yes, I might have been able to make a live CD, but with the graphics issues that wasn’t a feasible option), shrunk the first partition on the second disk a bit, leaving 10GB in front of the disk. Great, a primary partition which I turned into /boot. Install again and no go, grub error 22.

Of course I needed to set the second HDD in my BIOS to first, then reinstall with grub into /boot with a generic boot loader.
Finally I had my system running for the first time.

If Grub 2 would have been standard for 12.1 I would not have had to jump through hoops and reinstalls to get this far. I would have dropped openSuSe and if someone asked about a linux distro I would have advised them against using it.

In my humble opinion, keeping the grub legacy as boot loader is chasing away a lot of people who might have needed to use it. If the devs are so keen on keeping it, provide it as an alternative. The setup procedure itself is far from perfect, it does not take into account that it can not boot itself if the partitions are at the end of a > 128GB disk.

Most people new to linux probably want it aside their windows and might end up being as frustrated as I am/was. Most won’t even care to look up what went wrong on the forums and just abandon it, I took the effort and got this far. It’s still not perfect, but I’m getting somewhere.

My vote is for standard use of grub 2.

19

I’m surprised, because Unity is less picky than Gnome Shell. I would assume that it did work with other Catalyst versions, that were known to have issues with Gnome Shell. You can have Gnome Shell under Ubuntu btw, but it’s not installed by default.

I’m not sure what your problem was, but I doubt it was the 128 GB limitation - which only affect old BIOSes.

Yes. They have to do something about it. Legacy Grub is not going to work anymore… or they would have to patch it - like Fedora’s - to support UEFI. But they should simply switch to Grub2 now.

No. It’s just a (confusing) warning. It can boot from anywhere, within the first 2 TB at least … Over 2 TB you need GUID partition (and Grub 2).

20

I’ve been trying to install OpenSuse 12.1 ever since it came out on my new HP computer. It came with Win7 and a 1TB drive, but it also has the new UEFI bios which has prevented me from installing OpenSuse. I’ve tried Ubuntu and Linux Mint with no success, and I search through this forum daily for any new tips. However, this past Sunday I wiped Win7 from the hard drive and was able to install Opensuse 12.1, and will keep it until we get Grub2 to work with the new UEFI bios. Only then will I attempt another dual boot with Win7.

Joe