Hello. I want to install OpenSuse on a partition without affecting the existing grub menu. There are similar threads but they are all years old.
Will the present installer allow me to do that?
Are you using UEFI booting? Or are you using legacy booting?
One way is to select on summary screen first section “Bootloader”, then select “not managed”. Grub may or may not be included in your installation, depending on whether it is part of your packages selection, but won’t be setup on any disk or filesystem.
If the existing Grub’s os-prober or rEFInd or other bootloader supports your new installation’s / filesystem selection, so that it can find and load kernel and initrd, you’ll be able to boot. Some versions of some bootloaders cannot read BTRFS, openSUSE’s default / filesystem.
There may follow other recommendations once you’ve answered nrickert.
Thanks for the replies. I am using UEFI.
If you are using UEFI with another linux, and if that system supports secure-boot, then you can try the following:
During install, go to the “Booting” section.
Uncheck the box: Update NVRAM entry
Uncheck the box: Secure Boot Support
The installer should then install booting such that it creates a “grub.cfg” but isn’t recognized by your UEFI BIOS so won’t affect your current boot menu.
In the software section of install, make sure that “shim” is included in the software to be installed (it should be the default).
You will probably need to update booting in your other linux. That should give it an entry to boot Tumbleweed. However, secure-boot might fail on Tumbleweed. If you want to use secure-boot, then enroll the shim certificate. You will find it at
/etc/uefi/certs/4659838C-shim-opensuse.crt
in your Tumbleweed system. But you should enroll while running your other linux system.
With UEFI, who controls boot is simple to change, as its saved location is in NVRAM. Either directly in BIOS setup or using efibootmgr while booted to any Linux in UEFI mode, this setting is easily changed. Therefore, it’s a safe thing to go ahead and include a normal Grub installation if desired. With Update NVRAM deselected during installation, the existing NVRAM selection should not be disturbed.
Thanks again. My present OS does not support secure boot and I have turned that off in the BIOS.
If I install OpenSuse, I will add it to the grub menu and update grub.
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