On Tue, 2013-01-22 at 13:31 +0200, Cristian Sava wrote: > On Tue, 2013-01-22 at 04:28 -0700, T.C. Hollingsworth wrote: > > On 1/22/13, Cristian Sava <csava@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > and grub2 for dual boot ... "Beginning in Fedora 18, GRUB2 can no longer > > > be installed to a partition." > > > http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/18/html/Installation_Guide/s1-grub-installing.html > > > > *anaconda* won't install GRUB2 to a partition. You can still > > accomplish it with `grub2-install --force`. > > > > -T.C. > > Thank you for the hint. > > C.S. > > My painful initial introduction to F18. Maybe it will help someone The important part is the use of core.img and the "not using" of block addressing I used bullets 3. and 5. successfully (on an all ext4 disk)! John https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=872826#c36 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=886502 Should be in the Release Notes somewhere? Very slightly modified NB Probably Only Valid for BIOS Booting? Problem There is no longer an option to install boot loader (GRUB) to a partition. Embedding GRUB to a partition contain an ext[234] file system is not recommended by upstream GRUB development, and in Fedora 18 is no longer an option. Suggested alternatives: 1. Allow Fedora 18 to install GRUB2, to become your primary boot manager/loader (default). 2. Do not install a boot loader using Anaconda If you don't want your primary boot manager replaced, then in anaconda you need to deselect boot loader installation during F18 installation. Installation Destination/Full disk summary and options to reveal the Selected Disks dialog. Select disks and click "Do not install bootloader". "Your system will not be bootable without additional post-install configuration. It's suggested you do this after installation has successfully finished, but before you reboot." 3. Configure the F18 boot loader manually at the end of installation Actions Create GRUB2 core.img, suppress embedding in the MBR and then produce grub.cfg Control/Alt/F2 to a console terminal just before rebooting Establish with certainty which /dev/sdX device Fedora 18 is installed on. Is this valid if / and /boot are on different partitions? mount | grep sysimage chroot /mnt/sysimage Install GRUB, using whole /dev/sdX device from previous step, not including partition number The --grub-setup option inhibits the installation of grub to the MBR of /dev/sdX, however all the required grub2 files are installed in their correct locations grub2-install --grub-setup=/bin/true /dev/sdX Then create grub.cfg - the name must be grub.cfg and NOT grub2.cfg grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg 4. If there is already a GRUB2 instance, add a menu entry to that distribution's grub.cfg, using 'configfile' to load the Fedora 18 grub.cfg created in step 3 above. 5. If you use a boot manager other than GRUB2, including GRUB Legacy, you can have it find and execute /boot/grub2/i-386-pc/core.img for example a GRUB Legacy entry with Fedora 18 /boot found on the 3rd partition: title Load GRUB2, Fedora 18 root (hd0,3) kernel /boot/grub2/i386-pc/core.img boot ---------------------------------------------------- Be careful with partition numbers when mixing grub and grub2 Be careful with the presence of the leading /boot depending upon whether /boot is a separate partition Not certain of the exact syntax to be used above if separate /boot partition is present!!!! ############################################################################################# If the above is forgotten during installation then the following may be useful ! Necessary during my very first F18 install! http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/GRUB-only-offers-a-rescue-shell.html 27.1 GRUB only offers a rescue shell GRUB's normal start-up procedure involves setting the 'prefix' environment variable to a value set in the core image by grub-install, setting the 'root' variable to match, loading the 'normal' module from the prefix, and running the 'normal' command (see normal). This command is responsible for reading /boot/grub/grub.cfg, running the menu, and doing all the useful things GRUB is supposed to do. If, instead, you only get a rescue shell, this usually means that GRUB failed to load the 'normal' module for some reason. It may be possible to work around this temporarily: for instance, if the reason for the failure is that 'prefix' is wrong (perhaps it refers to the wrong device, or perhaps the path to /boot/grub was not correctly made relative to the device), then you can correct this and enter normal mode manually: # Inspect the current prefix (and other preset variables): set # Find out which devices are available: ls # Set to the correct value, which might be something like this: set prefix=(hd0,1)/grub set root=(hd0,1) insmod normal normal However, any problem that leaves you in the rescue shell probably means that GRUB was not correctly installed. It may be more useful to try to reinstall it properly using grub-install device (see Invoking grub-install). When doing this, there are a few things to remember: Drive ordering in your operating system may not be the same as the boot drive ordering used by your firmware. Do not assume that your first hard drive (e.g. '/dev/sda') is the one that your firmware will boot from. device.map (see Device map) can be used to override this, but it is usually better to use UUIDs or file system labels and avoid depending on drive ordering entirely. At least on BIOS systems, if you tell grub-install to install GRUB to a partition but GRUB has already been installed in the master boot record, then the GRUB installation in the partition will be ignored. If possible, it is generally best to avoid installing GRUB to a partition (unless it is a special partition for the use of GRUB alone, such as the BIOS Boot Partition used on GPT). Doing this means that GRUB may stop being able to read its core image due to a file system moving blocks around, such as while defragmenting, running checks, or even during normal operation. Installing to the whole disk device is normally more robust. Check that GRUB actually knows how to read from the device and file system containing /boot/grub. It will not be able to read from encrypted devices, nor from file systems for which support has not yet been added to GRUB. -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
