walt wrote:
On 01/09/2011 04:10 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
Apparently, though unproven, at 02:44 on Sunday 09 January 2011, Dale
did
opine thusly:
I have not tried grub2 yet but I did fine these:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Grub2
http://grub.enbug.org/grub.cfg
Thanks Dale, the ubuntu link may be what I need.
I don't quite agree with Volker's viewpoint but don't totally
disagree with
him either. grub2 has a whole whack of bloat all of it's own.
Indeed it does, except for grub.info, which is not nearly complete.
Methinks a modular build system is in order here. Why should I build
support
for sparc when I know for a fact I'm building an x86 installer?
Here is how I do that manually, FWIW. (I've not run the grub2 install
scripts
because I haven't read them yet, which makes me nervous in a boot
loader :)
$cd ~/src #in my home directory, so I don't need root
$tar -xvzf /usr/portage/distfiles/grub-1.98.tar.gz
$cd grub-1.98
$./configure --prefix=$HOME --disable-werror
$make all install
At this point grub2 has merely saved some files in your home
directory, it
has *not* messed with your boot sector or touched legacy grub in any way.
$ls ~/bin/grub*
/home/wa1ter/bin/grub-bin2h /home/wa1ter/bin/grub-mkisofs
/home/wa1ter/bin/grub-editenv /home/wa1ter/bin/grub-mkpasswd-pbkdf2
/home/wa1ter/bin/grub-fstest /home/wa1ter/bin/grub-mkrelpath
/home/wa1ter/bin/grub-mkelfimage /home/wa1ter/bin/grub-mkrescue
/home/wa1ter/bin/grub-mkfont /home/wa1ter/bin/grub-script-check
/home/wa1ter/bin/grub-mkimage
$ls ~/lib/grub/i386-pc/
acpi.mod font.mod linux16.mod reboot.mod
affs.mod fs.lst lnxboot.img reiserfs.mod
afs.mod fshelp.mod loadenv.mod relocator.mod
<dozens more grub2 modules snipped for brevity>
That's where the bloat comes from, as you pointed out. There are tons
of those *.mod files you won't need, so the trick is to compile a list
of them you *do* need, and then feed the list to grub-mkimage as
described
below.
NOTE: I can't recall exactly why but the ata* modules conflict with some
other modules, so *don't use them* unless you know what you are doing.
Create a list of all grub2 modules:
$ls ~/lib/grub/i386pc/*.mod > /tmp/modlist
Now edit that file and delete any modules you know you don't need, e.g.
I deleted reiserfs.mod and ntfs.mod and the raid*.mod because I don't
use those items. Don't touch anything you don't clearly recognize, but
*do* delete ata.mod and ata_pthru.mod.
Now it's time to build the grub2 binary executable:
$~/bin/grub-mkimage -o /tmp/grub2bin `cat /tmp/modlist`
Your file grub2bin is actually formatted as a tiny pseudo kernel, which
your legacy grub can boot using the usual grub sytax:
title try grub2
root (hdX,X)
kernel /tmp/grub2bin (or wherever else you want to put it. NOTE: so far
I've done nothing requiring root privileges :)
That menu item will start a grub2 running so you can experiment with
it all you want, but still use legacy grub to boot as you always do.
(You won't yet have a menu file for grub2, so you will see only the
usual grub command prompt instead of a menu.)
The grub2 shell is a bit different, so you might want to type "set" to
see what variables you can change, "ls" to see your disks, and of course
hit the tab key when you don't know what else to type.
Type "help search" for the real excitement.
A few more grub2 differences: the 'linux' command replaces 'kernel' to
load your (linux) kernel. 'multiboot' is used to load any true multiboot
kernel e.g. NetBSD. Not sure, but I think you still need to chainload
the Windows booter -- sadly, I can't test it anymore :D
One problem I encountered on my old amd32 machine is that I had to remove
the USB-related grub2 modules or grub2 would crash while probing for
disks.
The newer amd64 machine works fine with the USB stuff included. Dunno
why.
NOTE: if grub2 names your disks (ataN,N) instead of (hdN,N) that means
you are using the ata* grub2 modules -- I haven't figured out how to make
that configuration work yet.
This sounds about as complicated as lilo. Is this going to end up like
hal? You know, so complicated that no one can use the thing and they
have to start over again?
Dale
:-) :-)
