GRUB2 Basics

Tiberius · 2009-01-27 01:05:44

Hmmmm....

After reading and re-reading the wiki on GRUB2 ,the resource links at the bottom of the page and googling I'm still none the wiser as to why my GRUB2 upgrades fail (two attempts). So I'd like to pose a few basic questions i'm unsure of. I find the available information sparse to say the least and confusing. eg: my undertsanding is the partition numbering has changed from starting at zero to starting at one. With NO changes to the disk numbering system ,though after googleing I found on a gentoo forum it's the other way around?? The disk numbering need to be changed!! So after my little run-around it would seem to make sense to to gather some answers to some simplistic questions.

Maybe this will end up a little reference point and help some people.

All definitive answers I will add to the wiki: my way of giving some back to the Arch community.

If you have questions you are unsure of about GRUB2 or feel will help other's (regardless of wether you know the answer or not) 'post' them here ,i'll endeavour to maintain (and gather) info *if* this is conceived as a valuable idea. Please provide known answers and/or any 'best practice' solutions you are aware of - and must be consistent with the Arch way of doing things.

So for starters...

Where's the official GRUB2 FAQ and doesn't that have the answers?
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-l … aq.en.html

Must GRUB2 be edited with 'nano' or similar in place of a text editor?

Is it ok to hack grub.cfg with a text editor ie: Gedit?

Does GRUB2 require install where only / exists or does it work ok where users have a seperate /boot partition?

Is GRUB2 case sensitive?

Can GRUB2 support NTFS?

Does GRUB2 have issues with any special characters and/or character sets?

In a live system I can type # grub and then configure ,where has it gone in GRUB2?

Must I run mkinitcpio to (create new image)?

When I borked my system I could goto GRUB find /grub/stage1. Why is the 'find' command
not present in GRUB2 ?

Can GRUB2 work with the existing kernel-image that GRUB supports without intervention?

Does GRUB2 have issues with 64bit?

I followed the wiki rebooted and got kernel panic ,cant sync ,cant find init! - what do I do next?

Should I crack open a 4X ,boot half-life2 and forget about all this stuff? lol

Save the latter I guess going straight to the dev(s) is one idea though they're probably busy at the moment ,i've looked around for answers to the above though it's all bits n pieces hence this... !

Ranguvar · 2009-01-27 01:51:07

Err. You couldn't find the GRUB 2 FAQ?
http://www.google.com/search?q=GRUB2+FAQ (works with a space between grub and 2 as well)
First result you see there (or second). As they say (and link) the wiki has the rest of the info.

Rather vampirish IMHO.

Disk numbering has changed only slightly.
Here is a great page with a ton more answers: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB2

1.) nano is a text editor.
2.) They don't recommend it, but yes. The preferred way is to edit scripts which themselves build grub.cfg. http://grub.enbug.org/grub.cfg
3.) GRUB usually installs to the MBR. You set the boot and root partitions yourself. This hasn't changed. In other words, yes.
4.) What do you mean? In what? Does it matter? Install and find out. I would guess yes, since that's the Unix style.
5.) http://grub.enbug.org/CurrentStatus
6.) Considering that one of the most hyped features is not requiring ASCII like the old GRUB, meaning UTF-8, graphics, etc.? http://grub.enbug.org/AboutInternationalization
7.) http://grub.enbug.org/Manual http://grub.enbug.org/UseCases http://grub.enbug.org/InstallingGrubNatively http://grub.enbug.org/CommandList
8.) Dunno. Try and see.
9.) http://grub.enbug.org/CommandList (Look carefuly...)
10.) I think so. I'm not quite sure what you mean. Again, try and see.
11.) No.
12.) Wait, so you know about the wiki? Arrgh... Anyways, this probably means you didn't load the initrd, or set it up wrong (without the modules necessary to load your filesystem). Please post all relevant info (mkinitrd config, filesystem used for root, grub.cfg and commands used, etc...)

90% of all that was just me effectively using Google. If I could do it, so can you. Please search next time I almost didn't reply - there's not much incentive to reply to posts like this when there's others to help too.

Hope you get your issue resolved.

Last edited by Ranguvar (2009-01-27 01:57:30)

Tiberius · 2009-01-27 22:11:22

I'm not sure I made myself very clear?

Of course I know where the GRub2 faq is - that's why it's posted in post #1 ??? Vampirish? - I didnt ask for your opinion.

This isnt just about getting my issue resolved it's for others that have questions about GRUB2 ,kinda like a basic faq - not everyone knows all the answers. Anyways if you'd like to shed any light i'm stuck here currently ,same setup as Skottish.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=61889

1. you dont say! :-)
2. So it uses a new bashish scripting language - thankyou. Do you think it would be an idea to mention this in the Arch Wiki then? re: not advised gedit n such like ,use Nano/Vi?
3. So you dont know the answer? I've googled and read some with a seperate /boot partition are having problems.
4. So you dont know. I've installed twice already and its bombed. Again i've read some posts where there might be a question mark over certain characters. I'm trying to rule out the possibility's why mine is falling over.
5. Thankyou
6. see 4.
7. Link4 is helpful and an entry to the Arch Wiki under something like: major differences between Grub and Grub2 - what do you think?
8. doesn't help ,i've checked the Arch Wiki on 'mkinitcpio' and to be honest I dont know if creating a 'new image' using GRUB2 might incur failure reverting to GRUB. Maybe I need to go back to Linux schoool cos i'm missing a step somewhere.
9. Yes you are right, I missed that page and so might others - dunno how - see 7?
10, So you dont know and it crossed my mind that there is a gap in the information in the Arch Wiki? - just wondering...
11. Thanks for clearing that up ,I can cross that off my list.
12. Yes :-) all commands issued as per Arch Wiki. I'll post the info here..
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=61889
and mkinitrd is obsolete
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Initrd
i've mkinitcpio-0.5.23-1 installed

Maybe some of the above would make good additions in the troubleshooting section (Arch Wiki)?

Ranguvar · 2009-01-27 22:33:20

If you knew where the GRUB FAQ, wiki, etc. was, then my question is why you didn't see all the info there on most of your questions?

"Vampirish? - I didnt ask for your opinion."
You asked for my help. I won't be an ass about it, but my opinion comes with my help - I spend a good deal of time doing the latter, and try to minimize it as best I can. Feel free to ignore either (preferably both in that case). Or am I supposed to serve mindlessly? Again, I'm not trying to be an ass - I'm trying to help, but I'm also trying to help you help yourself so I can help others (whew).

1.) I was answering where you asked nano vs GEdit. nano and GEdit are both text editors, it shouldn't matter.
2.) No, there's no difference between those editors in this respect. Vi/emacs/nano are text editors, the same as GEdit.
3.) No, I said it works. I'm using it right now on my laptop with a separate /boot
4.) Again, case-sensitive where? Specifically? With commands or the file system, undoubtedly - that's the Unix way. If not that, I would ask the GRUB people, but I bet it is.
6.) No... it works fine *I believe*. I would ask the GRUB people if you really want to be sure.
7.) Sure, sounds good. Either a subsection under the GRUB2 page, or just merge the info throughout. That would help a lot of people
8.) Creating a new image with GRUB2 won't hurt anything. I'm just not sure if it will fix anything.
9.) Good idea Stick it in the wiki.
10.) I don't think it's necessary, especially since the Wiki doesn't say to do it, but there'd be no harm in doing it, and it's quick to do...
12.) I meant mkinitcpio.

Last edited by Ranguvar (2009-01-27 22:34:27)

Duologic · 2009-01-27 22:43:29

Way to many easy questions... I think Ranguvar just got annoyed.

Ontopic:
I tried to install GRUB2 too a few days ago, didn't work, tried some stuff to get it fixed but it totaly broke.
Ended up in reinstalling the entire system. So far so good GRUB 0.97 works well and stays simple.
I just wouldn't put it onto a machine for daily use until it is more stable and more documentation is available.

Hit the topic again if you get it of the ground and tell your story

pyther · 2009-01-27 22:51:04

Way to bit the hand that is helping you!

@Ranguvar I think your reply was very good and I agree with your opinion.

pressh · 2009-01-27 22:52:08

I think FAQ forum threads like this one are flawed by design. Stuff like this should go in the wiki.
If you have a problem, just ask for help on that particular one and if you think it can be handy for someone else add it to the wiki after you get your problem fixed.

Duologic wrote:

I tried to install GRUB2 too a few days ago, didn't work, tried some stuff to get it fixed but it totaly broke.
Ended up in reinstalling the entire system.

For the record if you somehow end up with an unusable MBR (with either boot manager) you should be able to reinstall the boot manager from any livecd and you'll be fine (as a matter of fact the Arch installer cd should do the trick).

Duologic · 2009-01-27 23:03:03

No worries, it wasn't only MBR that I broke ;-) I was experimenting with ext4 and /boot got unreadable too.

Tiberius · 2009-01-27 23:08:04

Duologic wrote:

Way to many easy questions... I think Ranguvar just got annoyed.

Yeah you are right ,too many questions in one go ,but that was point ,to pull in newbiesh stuff for others. Didnt expect to annoy anyone. My own prob is now fixed because I was a total stupid dumbass .

p.s great wiki on speeding up Arch ,I saved 10secs on boot ;-)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-27 01:05:44

GRUB2 Basics

#2 2009-01-27 01:51:07

Re: GRUB2 Basics

#3 2009-01-27 22:11:22

Re: GRUB2 Basics

#4 2009-01-27 22:33:20

Re: GRUB2 Basics

#5 2009-01-27 22:43:29

Re: GRUB2 Basics

#6 2009-01-27 22:51:04

Re: GRUB2 Basics

#7 2009-01-27 22:52:08

Re: GRUB2 Basics

#8 2009-01-27 23:03:03

Re: GRUB2 Basics

#9 2009-01-27 23:08:04

Re: GRUB2 Basics

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