When I installed 64 bit OpenSUSE Gnome 11.4 today on an ext4 primary partition (sda4) from the Install DVD, it eliminated LinuxMint 9’s entry from OpenSUSE’sGrub.
The 64 bit LinuxMint v. 9 (Isadora) is installed on an ext4 logical partition (sda9) inside an extended partition, but it doesn’t appear in OpenSUSE’s Grub (and now OpenSUSE 11.4 won’t connect to the Internet - although the Live CD ran yesterday without a hitch).
I’m hoping that my fellow OpenSUSE users can help me regain access to my Isadora installation and hopefully, point me to a solution for the Internet access problem.
Thanks in advance for your solidarity and support.
If I recall, linux mint 9 uses GRUB2 and openSUSE uses GRUB. To recover your mint entry, run this script Extracting Ubuntu (Grub2) boot entries. and paste the entry in your /boot/grub/menu.lst file of openSUSE.
But to cut a long story short, you just have to add this entry into Grub’s menu.lst file:
#Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: none#
title Mint Linux booting via symlinks
root (hd0,8)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda9 ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img
That’s for the root partition of Mint on sda9. Just adjust the sda9 and (hd0,8) to fit your Mint root location.
If it doesn’t work - even only from time to time - you’ll know why. The use of symlinks is fine but the use of device names shoud be avoided. Neither openSUSE nor Ubuntu does that (anymore) because of the way device names are generated by udev (and susceptible to change).
If you have only one hard disk and never boot with external hard disk (also USB) plugged in, swerdna’s method is fine. In all other cases, it is bad.
The script DaaX linked to should work for you. Afterwards, you can replace /boot/vmlinuz-xxxxx and /boot/initrd-xxxx with symlinks if you wish, so you won’t have to reedit your /boot/grub/menu.lst if you do a kernel update under Mint - so you will have the best of both methods (however I rather don’t use symlinks in Grub menu).
@swerdna,
IMHO, you should update your Howto. Using device names in grub menu should be discouraged. You could for example advise to use **blkid **to get the partition UUID. Look at the syntax Ubuntu uses in its grub.cfg.
IMHO, you should update your Howto. Using device names in grub menu should be discouraged. You could for example advise to use blkid to get the partition UUID. Look at the syntax Ubuntu uses in its grub.cfg.
Strictly speaking you’re right. But it’s too complicated for newbies IMO. Mostly I find that good old sda2 stays as sda2. So it’s a decision as to whether to protect them against the 0.1% occurrence and make the thing too difficult or not to do that – hard call in a real world with real ppl in it I find.
swerdna wrote:
>> IMHO, you should update your Howto. Using device names in grub menu
>> should be discouraged. You could for example advise to use blkid to get
>> the partition UUID. Look at the syntax Ubuntu uses in its grub.cfg.
> Strictly speaking you’re right. But it’s too complicated for newbies
> IMO. Mostly I find that good old sda2 stays as sda2. So it’s a decision
> as to whether to protect them against the 0.1% occurrence and make the
> thing too difficult or not to do that – hard call in a real world with
> real ppl in it I find.
-1
I find the opposite. Ubuntu and Opensuse mostly come up with different
assignments, while booting with or without a USB drive plugged in almost
always makes a difference. So sda is a complete non-starter for me.
A true newbie will have no idea what /dev/sda is anyway, so my vote
would be to introduce them straight to current technology, not tell them
about how steam-powered lorries used to work.
This is not a 0.1% occurence. Read the latest posts about 11.4 installation. It is not limited to SATA/IDE mixing situations - although it’s obvious in this case. We had cases here where the external USB suddenly became sda.
I was impressed by the quality and depth of the responses received in answer to my original post but unfortunately, the Grub vs. Grubs2 problem persists because I decided to do a fresh installation to the same partition where 11.3 had been first, after discovering that the passwords I supplied weren’t working, this time using the Live CD which connects to the Internet with no problems.
However, when the installment finished I had no Internet connection. (I obtained the primary and secondary DNS IP’s from my ISP and hope that will help, once I learn where to configure them).
I also noticed that the OS v. 11.4 installation asks which Boot Loader you want to use, Grub, ELILO or LILO (or none), but since I know nothing about the latter two, I stuck with Grub.
The installation also asks if you want to boot from Grub, the Master Boot Record or use a Custom Boot Partition (or all three - which I chose, directing it also to the Mint Partition) and this time Grub presents 5 “Other Linux” options, one of which is Win7 and the rest say “No Boot Manager”, when selected.
My recognizing that OpenSUSE is an unusually complete OS with knowledgeable and helpful users is what keeps me going because a few (although very few) Linux Distros DO run fine “right out of the box” (as did the OpenSUSE version I installed in 2008).
IOW, I assume that the boot problem will be resolved but the Internet connection must work too, in order to take advantage of OpenSUSE’s very real strengths (one of which is the ability to upgrade without having to do a new installation with each new version).
Once again, thanks in advance for your patience and helpful responses.