[SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

LatentJaM · 2008-11-06 03:44:25

I have previously installed Arch successfully on an old 800MHz P3 laptop, following the guides on the wiki, and have x with fluxbox installed, and working wifi.
Whilst doing that I realised that I really like the distro.
So I decided to install it on my main pc, a much more recent laptop. (Acer Aspire 7720)
The laptop has a 250gb hdd, which has been partitioned into:
80gb primary - Ubuntu 8.04.
70gb primary - Vista
I made a third partition, using gparted - which was an extended partition. I partitioned the extended partion into 4 logical partitions, 15gb for / , 10gb for /home , 5gb for /swap , and 64mb for /boot.
I then booted into the Arch livecd and installed the os using the four partitions I had just created, including the bootloader. I didn't think much about it at the time, or of the consequences as I was just following the steps on the livecd. (which I had done before when installing on my other laptop).
So once Arch had installed, I rebooted and was greeted with GRUB 0.97 - with only options to boot Arch.
I thought this was no big deal, as Arch booted. I thought that to remedy the missing boot entries I could simply mount my ubuntu partition, and paste the entries across.
But I couldn't mount the ubuntu partition, nor the vista. "fdisk -l" showed sda1,2,4,5,6,7,8 to be present, but I couldn't mount sda2, or sda4 (vista or ubuntu).
I hope you have some ideas or suggestions.

p.s. I realise this post is a bit crazy, in respect of the way it is written, but its 3:45am atm.

Last edited by LatentJaM (2008-11-08 12:50:27)

cemsbr · 2008-11-06 03:57:08

Please, paste the output of:

# mkdir /mnt/ubuntu
# mount /dev/sda(Ubuntu parition number) /mnt/ubuntu

LatentJaM · 2008-11-06 04:13:25

Now this is an odd one. I did as you said, and it worked. I could cd into /mnt/ubuntu... it mounted properly. I could swear it wasn't doing that before.
But its now thanks to you I have a mounted ubuntu partition.
Lovely.
I've cd'ed into /mnt/ubuntu/boot/grub, and the ubuntu grub menu.lst file is there.
Would it be okay to replace the Arch grub menu.lst with that one?

# edit:
I haven't pasted the output of the command, because there was no output, and even if there was I couldn't, because I'm using a different pc to write this.

Last edited by LatentJaM (2008-11-06 04:16:36)

cemsbr · 2008-11-06 04:17:47

Only adding missing OSes (title, root, kernel, initrd) will be ok.

To mount vista partition, use ntfs-3g so you'll be able to read and write data on it.

LatentJaM · 2008-11-06 04:28:34

I just replaced the whole Arch grub menu.lst with the ubuntu one. (Backing up the original). Just as a test, and as i have no gui apps, it much quicker.
It worked, and I can boot into ubuntu and vista.
Only thing is, I forgot to add the Arch entries into the new menu.lst, so I'll need to do that from within Ubuntu. xD

You solved the problem, and posted your replies very quickly. So thank you.

I have another smaller problem too now, I haven't been able to install the wireless drivers for my Acer Aspire 7720 on Arch. And surprisingly, neither will the drivers install for my wireless usb network adapter. (d-link dwl-g122), which I've managed to get working on my other Arch laptop.

Have you got any suggestions?

Last edited by LatentJaM (2008-11-06 04:29:48)

cemsbr · 2008-11-06 04:48:50

This is what you need (change the root partition)

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda7 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda7 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

Considering the wireless, I have not seen this adapter so far, but a starting point could be the packages rt2500, rt2x00-rt61-fw and rt2x00-rt71w-fw. You could check which module ubuntu is using with

$ lsmod | grep ^rt

creslin · 2008-11-06 05:02:57

cemsbr wrote:

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda7 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

It looks like he has a separate boot partition with boot on /dev/sda8 and root on /dev/sda5. Those are just guesses based on the order in the post, so the values will have to be tweaked if the partitions are in a different order:

title Arch Linux
  root (hd0,7)
  kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 ro
  initrd /kernel26.img

LatentJaM · 2008-11-06 05:24:47

I've now got the GRUB boot entries for Arch sorted.
Now I want the internal wifi card drivers sorted, as I'm finding it tedious swapping a USB adapter to and from the two laptops.
I have found this website: http://pestilence.insert.gr/installing- … ire-7720g/
It is a guide to setting up Arch on the same model of laptop that I have, albeit a higher spec, though I do not believe this extends to the wifi card, because they appear to be the same.
I've ran the commands to use pacman to install the wireless drivers, but to no avail, no devices are shown on "ifconfig".
However "modprobe" has just occurred to me, I'll post this and then I'll try it.

# edit:
Just to clarify: Wireless is working under Ubuntu, and indeed Vista. It is only Arch where I haven't configured the drivers correctly yet.

# edit-edit:
Output of lspci | grep -i net:

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation Netlink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
06:00.0 Network conroller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)

Last edited by LatentJaM (2008-11-06 05:38:48)

cemsbr · 2008-11-06 15:57:23

You have another wireless card model. You should try replacing 4965 to 3945 in that website (e.g. iwlwifi-4965-ucode to iwlwifi-3945-ucode).

If that doesn't work, paste the kernel log output when modprobing iwl3945.

LatentJaM · 2008-11-07 17:45:37

You were right, I guess I didn't pay attention to the version numbers.
I've now got the wireless drivers working. All it took was to download the iwlwifi-3945-ucode, then mod-probe it and edit rc.conf.
I also didn't realise that there was a walk-through for installing my wireless card on the wiki. :S
Installation turned out to be easy. And using wpa_supplicant connecting to my router was easy too.
So there, all problems solved.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-11-06 03:44:25

[SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

#2 2008-11-06 03:57:08

Re: [SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

#3 2008-11-06 04:13:25

Re: [SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

#4 2008-11-06 04:17:47

Re: [SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

#5 2008-11-06 04:28:34

Re: [SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

#6 2008-11-06 04:48:50

Re: [SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

#7 2008-11-06 05:02:57

Re: [SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

#8 2008-11-06 05:24:47

Re: [SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

#9 2008-11-06 15:57:23

Re: [SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

#10 2008-11-07 17:45:37

Re: [SOLVED] Arch GRUB prevents multi-boot

Board footer