Lamar Owen wrote:
On Friday 19 October 2007, Jacques B. wrote:
As for Karl's knowledge/expertise and accomplishments in other areas,
I don't doubt it. It has never been discussed because it is
ultimately not relevant.
Had I not done a little digging into Karl's area of expertise, I would find
him quite annoying to the extreme (and I did, in fact, for some time). Now
that I know where he's coming from, I only find it slightly annoying. I find
the backlash against him far more annoying than I find him.
Because that does not automatically make him
knowledgeable or an expert in the topics he is discussing on this
list.
Of course.
But what I found is that I don't think he considers himself an expert at all
(correct me if I'm wrong, Karl); he's just trying to help in the way in which
he's used to helping.
I am no expert auto mechanic either; however, I found a trick in removing and
installing the power steering lines on a 1987 Ford Taurus that I bet is not
in any of the manuals; should experienced auto mechanics automatically
dismiss my attempts at describing a serious timesaver just because I don't
use the 'correct' terminology? (I did this myself; I didn't have a
particular factory tool to remove one of the things the manual said I had to
remove; it took me twelve hours to get the first line off without removing
the hard-to-remove part, but fifteen minutes later I had the second line off,
and both new lines on once I found the trick. A dealer mechanic told me I
was crazy, that there was no way. I told him that I'd be glad to show him
how I did it; he ridiculed the description of my method and said that it
could not possibly work; so I went down and demonstrated to the assembled
technicians at the dealership; jaws dropped when I did both lines in thirty
minutes, and me not a mechanic....)
Being an expert does not automatically make somebody right; not being an
expert doesn't make someone wrong, either, even if the terminology
isn't 'correct.' Correctness only counts if it is for communicating the
concept; correctness just for correctness' sake is simply pedantic.
Thank you all for coming to my defense in a thoughtful way. Indeed I
am in no way an expert at Grub. But I am a quick learner even at 72
years old. I have digested what you all have said and applied it to the
small file I wrote on the Grub Manual. So rather than write what I have
learned I will simply put the paper here for you to read again.
Please no more about what is root. I do feel it is well covered now.
By the way the old version was right too. I think this might be more clear.
GRUB MANUAL PART 1
There is nothing simple about what Grub does. It is the tiny
software that let us boot our Linux or Windows operating systems. At
first look at what it takes in the file /grub/grub.conf to boot a Linux
system.
Figure 1:
title Fedora (2.6.22.1-41.fc7)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.1-41.fc7 ro root=LABEL=f7 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.22.1-41.fc7.img
Figure 1 is a typical grub.conf entry from an actual working system.
Root is used twice in this entry and so first what is meant by root? The
root directory is the directory from which all other directories come
from in a file system.
Many people keep the entire Linux in one partition and in that case
both of the root point to the same partition. Others like to use more
partitions and there is a root directory for each of them and the root
calls point to different partitions.
It is 4 lines and each are required and they need to be perfect.
Below is taken from the above but actual things are replaced by numbers
so we can talk to each.
Figure 2:
title 1
root (2)
kernel 3,4
initrd 5,6
The title can be anything you want. Your computer often wants to use
the name of the kernel.
The root(2) written in grub form is the partition where the grub
directory and kernel and initrd files are found. A typical one will look
like root(hd0,3) which says a partition on the first hard drive and the
4th partition.
Kernel 3 tells grub where the files are in the root(2) partition.
Kernel 4 is the root= which is the partition where the kernel will
find the system. The partition is shown in normal terms like /dev/sda5.
For example look at this working grub.conf entry:
Figure 3:
title Fedora (2.6.22.9-91.fc7)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.22.9-91.fc7 ro root=/dev/sda5 quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.22.9-91.fc7.img
From our work above we are not interested in the title but we want to
figure out what the root is. It says hd0,5 which means in words hard
drive 1, partition 6 which can be also written /dev/sda6.
Notice kernel and initrd and see they are just written as, for
example kernel /vmlinuz... This means the two files are in the root
directory of /dev/sda6.
The kernel line has root=/dev/sda5 which means the system to be boot
is in the /dev/sda5 partition even though the grub and kernel files are
in the /dev/sda6 partition.
So this example is one in which the boot and system partitions are
different. They can be on different hard drives too.
--
Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
Linux User
#450462 http://counter.li.org.
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