Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 12/09/2013 11:17 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote: | From: Daniel J Walsh dwa...@redhat.com | On 12/08/2013 01:11 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote: | https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=882568 Fedora could not mount | the Ubuntu partition for examination because it wasn't SELinux labelled. | Of course requiring a Ubuntu partition to be labelled for Fedora isn't | reasonable. | Do you have the SELinux AVC messages that was blocking this? I don't have anything left but the bug report. I did include the output of ausearch -m avc -ts recent in that report. Ok I missed the bug report. Anyways it appears it has been fixed since F18. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.15 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlKnHUMACgkQrlYvE4MpobOLVQCfeqHjweFGN7FStRASQAZIdbpM sB8Amwawq/9sBvO58yBGNdZsh2OEZtAr =63PJ -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: [GW-C] Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 12/08/2013 01:11 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote: | From: Joe Zeff j...@zeff.us | On 11/26/2013 02:00 PM, Javier Perez wrote: | For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk | each time I update ubuntu kernel. | | How do you expect Ubuntu to find a kernel on an unmounted partition? It is supposed to find it. There is a bug in Ubuntu 12.04: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/os-prober/+bug/1038093 This was reported more than a year ago. That bugs.Launchpad notes an upstream fix a year ago, so the bug was marked as Fix Released almost a year ago. But no update to 12.04 has been issued. This is an example of why I am less comfortable with Ubuntu. I had similar problems with Fedora that were resolved more quickly: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=882568 Fedora could not mount the Ubuntu partition for examination because it wasn't SELinux labelled. Of course requiring a Ubuntu partition to be labelled for Fedora isn't reasonable. Do you have the SELinux AVC messages that was blocking this? https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=995777 Not a Fedora bug. Fedora could not mount the Ubuntu partition because Ubuntu didn't cleanly unmount it. An fsck was required. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.15 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlKlzD4ACgkQrlYvE4MpobN2RACeOlgitT+iPpvgVczsjHOdrbDp fRAAoLrnfr+y0ea0dYv5fK10aVvdhED1 =n6cU -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
| From: Daniel J Walsh dwa...@redhat.com | On 12/08/2013 01:11 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote: | https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=882568 Fedora could not mount | the Ubuntu partition for examination because it wasn't SELinux labelled. | Of course requiring a Ubuntu partition to be labelled for Fedora isn't | reasonable. | Do you have the SELinux AVC messages that was blocking this? I don't have anything left but the bug report. I did include the output of ausearch -m avc -ts recent in that report. -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: [GW-C] Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
| From: Joe Zeff j...@zeff.us | On 11/26/2013 02:00 PM, Javier Perez wrote: | For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk | each time I update ubuntu kernel. | | How do you expect Ubuntu to find a kernel on an unmounted partition? It is supposed to find it. There is a bug in Ubuntu 12.04: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/os-prober/+bug/1038093 This was reported more than a year ago. That bugs.Launchpad notes an upstream fix a year ago, so the bug was marked as Fix Released almost a year ago. But no update to 12.04 has been issued. This is an example of why I am less comfortable with Ubuntu. I had similar problems with Fedora that were resolved more quickly: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=882568 Fedora could not mount the Ubuntu partition for examination because it wasn't SELinux labelled. Of course requiring a Ubuntu partition to be labelled for Fedora isn't reasonable. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=995777 Not a Fedora bug. Fedora could not mount the Ubuntu partition because Ubuntu didn't cleanly unmount it. An fsck was required. -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 29, 2013, at 12:59 PM, Javier Perez pepeb...@gmail.com wrote: On Nov 28, 2013 1:09 PM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote: On Nov 28, 2013, at 5:31 AM, Juan Orti Alcaine juan.o...@miceliux.com wrote: Give a look to this proposal: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/BootLoaderSpec/ Yeah I mentioned it about 23 emails back in this thread. The most useful aspect of that doc is the admission that there's a problem. As for the suggested solutions, we end up with more problems some of which were discussed by the creator of gdisk, and the current maintainer of rEFInd, Rod Smith. See comment 14 onward. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=159172p=1 Shouldn't this kind of propios al be written as a RFC # thingie? Like The TCP pigeon network… Its presence on freedesktop.org is effectively an RFC. I think more seriousness about having a linux boot experience that isn't utterly craptastic requires the various distro installer and bootloader teams get together in person at something like Linux Plumbers Conference, and hash out the issues and agree to something. Short of that, it's hand waiving. Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
Shouldn't this kind of propios al be written as a RFC # thingie? Like The TCP pigeon network... On Nov 28, 2013 1:09 PM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote: On Nov 28, 2013, at 5:31 AM, Juan Orti Alcaine juan.o...@miceliux.com wrote: Give a look to this proposal: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/BootLoaderSpec/ Yeah I mentioned it about 23 emails back in this thread. The most useful aspect of that doc is the admission that there's a problem. As for the suggested solutions, we end up with more problems some of which were discussed by the creator of gdisk, and the current maintainer of rEFInd, Rod Smith. See comment 14 onward. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=159172p=1 Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
Give a look to this proposal: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/BootLoaderSpec/ -- Juan Orti GPG Key: DEEBD08B - http://jorti.fedorapeople.org/pubkey.asc Blog: https://apuntesderoot.wordpress.com/ -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 28, 2013, at 5:31 AM, Juan Orti Alcaine juan.o...@miceliux.com wrote: Give a look to this proposal: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/BootLoaderSpec/ Yeah I mentioned it about 23 emails back in this thread. The most useful aspect of that doc is the admission that there's a problem. As for the suggested solutions, we end up with more problems some of which were discussed by the creator of gdisk, and the current maintainer of rEFInd, Rod Smith. See comment 14 onward. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=159172p=1 Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:02:33 -0800, Joe Zeff wrote: On 11/26/2013 02:00 PM, Javier Perez wrote: For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk each time I update ubuntu kernel. How do you expect Ubuntu to find a kernel on an unmounted partition? You may be surprised, but when using os-prober, it will examine the system and search for installations regardless of whether they are stored on a mounted fs. It does that here by default, and even finds them on LVs. -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 20:24:32 -0700, Chris Murphy wrote: Well it's not a good recommendation to do what is explicitly not recommended by GRUB devs. grub-install spits out a warning if you try to do this, by the way. It requires the user pass --force for it to work. No problem. So far I can live with it using blocklists. # grep chain /etc/grub.d/40_custom chainloader (hd0,6)+1 #chainloader (hd0,5)+1 #chainloader (hd0,4)+1 chainloader (hd0,1)+1 chainloader (hd0,2)+1 And --force also isn't supported by anaconda for 4-5 Fedora releases now. I'm not sure it ever really supported it. It had become a requirement for various configurations with the introduction of GRUB2 (Fedora 16/17?), since there has been quite a bit about that in bugzilla. OS Prober makes it easy to adjust the boot loaders after a new installation without using any rescue mode. It can't be used if /boot is on XFS or LVM or md RAID, all of which lack boot loader padding areas, so fewer configurations are supported. Okay. I don't want to put separate /boot partitions on XFS, LVM or RAID. Certainly not with a multi-boot desktop system (which uses LVM, though). You're better off using extlinux if you want something that supports installation to a partition. It's good to have a fallback, at least. Grubby includes support for extlinux, too. -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On 11/27/2013 09:56 AM, Michael Schwendt wrote: On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:02:33 -0800, Joe Zeff wrote: On 11/26/2013 02:00 PM, Javier Perez wrote: For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk each time I update ubuntu kernel. How do you expect Ubuntu to find a kernel on an unmounted partition? You may be surprised, but when using os-prober, it will examine the system and search for installations regardless of whether they are stored on a mounted fs. It does that here by default, and even finds them on LVs. As this feature is quite annoying when using cascaded bootloaders, it has become part of my routine customizations to put GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true into /etc/default/grub on all new installations to disable it. Ralf -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 3:36 AM, Javier Perez pepeb...@gmail.com wrote: For some reason, Fedora seems to find the kernels of the Ubuntu partitions each time I update the Fedora Kernel. I do not have them explicitly mounted as far as I remember. I'd have to check next time I boot in Fedora. Probably they are on /media It's os-prober that finds them, mounted or unmounted, and they're added to grub.cfg via the 30_os-prober script. -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 3:43 AM, Javier Perez pepeb...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote: On Nov 26, 2013, at 3:00 PM, Javier Perez pepeb...@gmail.com wrote: In theory, Ubuntu and Fedora will have their own partitions inside the SDD. My question is, can I share the /boot partition between Fedora and Ubuntu? both are using Grub2. Let me backup a step. The hardware is UEFI or BIOS based? Unknown at this moment. I have yet to pick a MB. So far I have decided to base the system on a Socket 1150 / I5-4670 CPU, I am still deciding about the mobo. I suspect that Chris is asking because it's simpler to set up dual-boot when you use UEFI because there's no fighting over what's in the MBR. With UEFI, you have separate /boots for Fedora and Ubuntu and mount the EFI system partition on /boot/efi, containing the different grub executables. The which-grub-controls-boot-problem migrates to which grub, Fedora or Ubuntu, comes ahead in the boot order, but it's more benign problem. -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 26, 2013, at 10:17 PM, Ralf Corsepius rc040...@freenet.de wrote: On 11/27/2013 04:24 AM, Chris Murphy wrote: On Nov 26, 2013, at 7:39 PM, Ralf Corsepius rc040...@freenet.de wrote: On 11/26/2013 11:56 PM, poma wrote: On 26.11.2013 23:18, Michael Schwendt wrote: That's because your setup is wrong. If I were you, I would install a bootloader into the boot sector of each of your /boot partitions and chainload them from your MBR. Are you kidding? I guess, he isn't. It's what I recommend, too. It's the only way to make sure the different OSes/distros bootloaders do not interfere with each other. Well it's not a good recommendation to do what is explicitly not recommended by GRUB devs. Correct, they are warning about it, but this doesn't mean their recommendation is any good. OK but are you saying you're willing to take responsibility for other people's systems whom you've recommended this method, over other methods, if they break? I wouldn't do that. To me, this is just one of those many grub2 usability regression. Nothing stops you from using grub legacy, despite it not being maintained in ~6 years, or using extlinux. grub-install spits out a warning if you try to do this, by the way. It requires the user pass --force for it to work. And --force also isn't supported by anaconda for 4-5 Fedora releases now. Right. Why do you think people like me have been complaining about anaconda? Its usability has regressed. It is not the responsibility of the anaconda team to support things that the developers of other tools themselves don't recommend. This is issue is one detail contributing to it. It can't be used if /boot is on XFS or LVM or md RAID, all of which lack boot loader padding areas, so fewer configurations are supported. Well, I am using one dedicated boot partition for each Linux distro and a common /boot and so far haven't had any problems. Right, so if you don't like GRUB2 anyway, isn't recommended for your use case, and you're using /boot on ext4, why not use extlinux which is designed for the use case you want? Why persist using something and then complaining about it? The earlier suggestion to have the primary grub.cfg include an entry using configfile to point to each distribution's grub.cfg is the better way to handle this. From my experience, this a way which is guaranteed to kill your system in longer terms, because different distros' grub configs are too different. If, like anything else, you keep grub2 up to date, including periodic replacement of its core.img, configfile supports all grub2 configuration files, and legacyconfigfile even supports grub legacy configuration files. The issue arrises when using old old old versions of grub2. There are some distros that still use ancient grub 1.98 versions. Those are fine for their grub.cfg to continue to be updated by the distro kernel updater, but it's better for the newest grub to be the one actually installed as the bootloader (the creator of boot.img and core.img). Each distribution updates only their own grub.cfg. And as far as I'm aware, no distribution ever re-runs grub-install, Distro upgrades and rescuing installations may do so. Again, I'm not aware of any distro that runs grub-install after the initial installation. It actually would be a good idea for this to happen periodically, though. As merely updates to the grub2 package does not cause the modules themselves to be updated, or core.img recreated from those updated modules. Nevertheless, nothing from distro A should touch the grub.cfg for distro B. And if you use /etc/grub.d/40_custom, which should not be stepped on in an update, then the user should be assured their use of configfile or legacyconfigfile or multiboot can continue to point to the grub.cfg of other distros. But the idea of using one grub to chainload another grub in a VBR just to read a configuration file is what's fragile and prone to breakage. All kinds of forums are full of this sort of problem. Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 27, 2013, at 1:58 AM, Michael Schwendt mschwe...@gmail.com wrote: It can't be used if /boot is on XFS or LVM or md RAID, all of which lack boot loader padding areas, so fewer configurations are supported. Okay. I don't want to put separate /boot partitions on XFS, LVM or RAID. Certainly not with a multi-boot desktop system (which uses LVM, though). If you use grub2 correctly, all of these use cases are easily supported. If you go off the rails, then your layouts are necessarily limited. In any case, installing a bootloader to a partition not how UEFI works. So I don't see the point in defending methods that aren't best practices, and instead cling to legacy notions that either aren't recommended or simply don't work, just because the firmware is BIOS. We'd be much better off with a cooperative approach with BIOS multibooting rather than the messy, overly complicated state that presently exists. You're better off using extlinux if you want something that supports installation to a partition. It's good to have a fallback, at least. Grubby includes support for extlinux, too. Right well grubby is another crusty bit of legacy I'd like to see us drop that has various other problems with at least one modern file system. Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:00:35 -0500, Javier Perez wrote: In theory, Ubuntu and Fedora will have their own partitions inside the SDD. My question is, can I share the /boot partition between Fedora and Ubuntu? both are using Grub2. Right now I have two /boot partitions (one on each HDD) and it is a pain. That's because your setup is wrong. If I were you, I would install a bootloader into the boot sector of each of your /boot partitions and chainload them from your MBR. [Alternatively, since both are GRUB2, you can let the primary grub.conf menu load a grub.conf from a secondary OS.] For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk each time I update ubuntu kernel. If I update Fedora kernel I have to go to Ubuntu to redo the boot config files. (Yes, the master boot goes to Ubuntu for some reason I do not remember any more). Again, that's because of the setup that's inconvenient. I want to keep just one /boot partition of maybe 800 MB to make everyone feel confy. That nothing I would recommend. ;-) -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 26, 2013, at 3:00 PM, Javier Perez pepeb...@gmail.com wrote: In theory, Ubuntu and Fedora will have their own partitions inside the SDD. My question is, can I share the /boot partition between Fedora and Ubuntu? both are using Grub2. Possibly because Ubuntu calls GRUB2 grub, while Fedora calls it grub2 - at least for now, this may change at or after F21. Since /boot/grub is for Ubuntu and /boot/grub2 is for Fedora, their respective grub.cfg's are separate. The other thing is that the grub packages will also be separately updated, but this tends to not affect grub as installed unless you rerun grub-install (or grub2-install on Fedora). A possible gotcha is that Ubuntu's grub2 tends to be an older version than Fedora. And only one grub boot.img (previously called stage1) and core.img (previously called stage2) can be installed to a drive at one time. So you'll have to pick which distribution's grub is to be installed *to the disk*. It's ridiculously confusing, but there are two meanings of installing grub: distribution package installation vs grub-install which installs the bootloader to the disk. Boot.img goes in the MBR, and core.img goes in the MBR gap. *sigh* Anyway, I think you can get away with it because things are rather differently named. However, I'd make /boot bigger than the default of 500MB. Let me backup a step. The hardware is UEFI or BIOS based? Right now I have two /boot partitions (one on each HDD) and it is a pain. For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk each time I update ubuntu kernel. If I update Fedora kernel I have to go to Ubuntu to redo the boot config files. (Yes, the master boot goes to Ubuntu for some reason I do not remember any more). I want to keep just one /boot partition of maybe 800 MB to make everyone feel confy. Yeah well you're learning, as have I, that linux distros aren't very friendly to each other, and multiboot is a hostile experience due to the lack of any meaningful cooperation among the distributions to do a better job. Hence the bootloader spec proposal to try and bring some sanity to the process. The spec has some outstanding problems, any of which are resolvable by distro stakeholders sitting down and having a conversation, but that hasn't happened so far. http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/BootLoaderSpec/ Also, although it is off topic, is there any good tutorial to virtualize the Win2K partition as is? You might want to shrink the NTFS volume, and then the partition. Next you can dd it to a file, and then in virt-manager or virsh, you specify the file as Raw. I haven't tried using rsync -a or cp -a to copy it into a qcow2 file instead, but that'd be nice. For one, qcow2 is sparse, so it'll be a smaller size file. Once you've tested it works, you can snapshot it, and only use the snapshots going forward, in case you break something you can just toss the snapshot and make a new one. Also, since the large backing file doesn't change, it gets backed up once, rather than the whole file being backed up every time it gets touched by booting Windows. One negative is that Win 2K is old, and I don't think its virtio drivers are current for the latest versions of qemu/kvm anymore, so you may have to suffer with something of a performance hit presenting that backing file as an IDE drive. Chris Murphy-- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 26, 2013, at 3:18 PM, Michael Schwendt mschwe...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:00:35 -0500, Javier Perez wrote: In theory, Ubuntu and Fedora will have their own partitions inside the SDD. My question is, can I share the /boot partition between Fedora and Ubuntu? both are using Grub2. Right now I have two /boot partitions (one on each HDD) and it is a pain. That's because your setup is wrong. If I were you, I would install a bootloader into the boot sector of each of your /boot partitions and chainload them from your MBR. This isn't recommended by upstream, and isn't supported by anaconda. So it requires a different installer touching the disk last, or manually issuing grub(2)-install --force. It's better to use extlinux for this use case though. [Alternatively, since both are GRUB2, you can let the primary grub.conf menu load a grub.conf from a secondary OS.] That's a better option. But Fedora grub should probably be used, as it seems the syntax of grub2 cfg files changes, and the newest version of grub installed as the bootloader can read either configfile. Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On 26.11.2013 23:18, Michael Schwendt wrote: That's because your setup is wrong. If I were you, I would install a bootloader into the boot sector of each of your /boot partitions and chainload them from your MBR. Are you kidding? poma -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On 11/26/2013 02:00 PM, Javier Perez wrote: For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk each time I update ubuntu kernel. How do you expect Ubuntu to find a kernel on an unmounted partition? -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 26, 2013, at 4:02 PM, Joe Zeff j...@zeff.us wrote: On 11/26/2013 02:00 PM, Javier Perez wrote: For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk each time I update ubuntu kernel. How do you expect Ubuntu to find a kernel on an unmounted partition? Neither Windows nor OS X have such a requirement, and yet they co-exist and can boot their siblings of various versions just fine. Now, ostensibly os-prober can read content without them being mounted, so it can find /etc/fstab, and various other things it's looking for, to figure out what systems are installed and how to put them together so it can create a grub.cfg entry for them. Because of the litany of completely non-standard layouts possible by linux alone, this can be a problem, not least of which is if root is encrypted. Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On 11/26/2013 04:00 PM, Javier Perez wrote: Hi I need some advice here. I am running a triple-boot system (Windows 2K, Fedora 19, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS). It has three HDDs, one for each OS. (Windows, Fedora, Ubuntu). I am planning to upgrade this system for Christmas. Windows will go away and I will only run it virtualized. I have more than a year since I boot it last. // snip //. Also, although it is off topic, is there any good tutorial to virtualize the Win2K partition as is? I'd really hate having to reinstall all my programs and stuff even if I am not using them much anymore. It will be kind of more trouble having to search for old drivers and stuff.I have the original CDs for all the programs, but many of the updates will be missing/disappeared. Also I will have to locate again FOSS software compatible with win2k Importing Windows into VirtualBox: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On 11/26/2013 11:56 PM, poma wrote: On 26.11.2013 23:18, Michael Schwendt wrote: That's because your setup is wrong. If I were you, I would install a bootloader into the boot sector of each of your /boot partitions and chainload them from your MBR. Are you kidding? I guess, he isn't. It's what I recommend, too. It's the only way to make sure the different OSes/distros bootloaders do not interfere with each other. Ralf -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On 11/27/2013 12:02 AM, Joe Zeff wrote: On 11/26/2013 02:00 PM, Javier Perez wrote: For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk each time I update ubuntu kernel. How do you expect Ubuntu to find a kernel on an unmounted partition? Well, expect is the wording. Fact is, these days many distros indeed find other Linux distro installations on partitions they do not use themselves and offer them through their bootloaders or even try to mount them somewhere into their file systems. Ralf -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 26, 2013, at 7:39 PM, Ralf Corsepius rc040...@freenet.de wrote: On 11/26/2013 11:56 PM, poma wrote: On 26.11.2013 23:18, Michael Schwendt wrote: That's because your setup is wrong. If I were you, I would install a bootloader into the boot sector of each of your /boot partitions and chainload them from your MBR. Are you kidding? I guess, he isn't. It's what I recommend, too. It's the only way to make sure the different OSes/distros bootloaders do not interfere with each other. Well it's not a good recommendation to do what is explicitly not recommended by GRUB devs. grub-install spits out a warning if you try to do this, by the way. It requires the user pass --force for it to work. And --force also isn't supported by anaconda for 4-5 Fedora releases now. It can't be used if /boot is on XFS or LVM or md RAID, all of which lack boot loader padding areas, so fewer configurations are supported. You're better off using extlinux if you want something that supports installation to a partition. The earlier suggestion to have the primary grub.cfg include an entry using configfile to point to each distribution's grub.cfg is the better way to handle this. Each distribution updates only their own grub.cfg. And as far as I'm aware, no distribution ever re-runs grub-install, so the existing bootloader is only going to be interfered with by users reinstalling the bootloader or installing a new OS. Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
For some reason, Fedora seems to find the kernels of the Ubuntu partitions each time I update the Fedora Kernel. I do not have them explicitly mounted as far as I remember. I'd have to check next time I boot in Fedora. Probably they are on /media On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 6:02 PM, Joe Zeff j...@zeff.us wrote: On 11/26/2013 02:00 PM, Javier Perez wrote: For some reason, Ubuntu does not find out Fedora unless I mount the disk each time I update ubuntu kernel. How do you expect Ubuntu to find a kernel on an unmounted partition? -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org -- -- /\_/\ |O O| pepeb...@gmail.com Javier Perez While the night runs toward the day... m m Pepebuho watches from his high perch. -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
. It's better to use extlinux for this use case though. I will look into it. Although what I found out at first did not look that much promising. Will this mean that I have to replace grub by extlinux? -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.comwrote: On Nov 26, 2013, at 3:00 PM, Javier Perez pepeb...@gmail.com wrote: In theory, Ubuntu and Fedora will have their own partitions inside the SDD. My question is, can I share the /boot partition between Fedora and Ubuntu? both are using Grub2. Let me backup a step. The hardware is UEFI or BIOS based? Unknown at this moment. I have yet to pick a MB. So far I have decided to base the system on a Socket 1150 / I5-4670 CPU, I am still deciding about the mobo. -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
After skimming through the manual think I like the configfile method. I will have to read some more. Thanks!!! On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 10:24 PM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.comwrote: On Nov 26, 2013, at 7:39 PM, Ralf Corsepius rc040...@freenet.de wrote: On 11/26/2013 11:56 PM, poma wrote: On 26.11.2013 23:18, Michael Schwendt wrote: That's because your setup is wrong. If I were you, I would install a bootloader into the boot sector of each of your /boot partitions and chainload them from your MBR. Are you kidding? I guess, he isn't. It's what I recommend, too. It's the only way to make sure the different OSes/distros bootloaders do not interfere with each other. Well it's not a good recommendation to do what is explicitly not recommended by GRUB devs. grub-install spits out a warning if you try to do this, by the way. It requires the user pass --force for it to work. And --force also isn't supported by anaconda for 4-5 Fedora releases now. It can't be used if /boot is on XFS or LVM or md RAID, all of which lack boot loader padding areas, so fewer configurations are supported. You're better off using extlinux if you want something that supports installation to a partition. The earlier suggestion to have the primary grub.cfg include an entry using configfile to point to each distribution's grub.cfg is the better way to handle this. Each distribution updates only their own grub.cfg. And as far as I'm aware, no distribution ever re-runs grub-install, so the existing bootloader is only going to be interfered with by users reinstalling the bootloader or installing a new OS. Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org -- -- /\_/\ |O O| pepeb...@gmail.com Javier Perez While the night runs toward the day... m m Pepebuho watches from his high perch. -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 26, 2013, at 8:40 PM, Javier Perez pepeb...@gmail.com wrote: . It's better to use extlinux for this use case though. I will look into it. Although what I found out at first did not look that much promising. Will this mean that I have to replace grub by extlinux? When I say this use case I'm not recommending it for you necessarily. I'm saying for those who insist on having bootloaders installed to partitions/volumes rather than using GRUB the way it's intended to work, should use extlinux which is designed expressly to work by being installed to each partition's VBR. I would just use the Fedora installation of GRUB, let it step on Ubuntu's installation of GRUB (which still keeps the Ubuntu grub.cfg intact), and then edit Fedora's /etc/grub.d/40_custom file to add an Ubuntu configuration entry that uses configfile pointing to Ubuntu's grub.cfg. That way anytime you run grub2-mkconfig on Fedora, the resulting grub.cfg always has an entry that points to Ubuntu (as well as Fedora entries). And Ubuntu kernel updates will be reflected in its grub.cfg. Chris Murphy -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On Nov 26, 2013, at 8:43 PM, Javier Perez pepeb...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 5:38 PM, Chris Murphy li...@colorremedies.com wrote: On Nov 26, 2013, at 3:00 PM, Javier Perez pepeb...@gmail.com wrote: In theory, Ubuntu and Fedora will have their own partitions inside the SDD. My question is, can I share the /boot partition between Fedora and Ubuntu? both are using Grub2. Let me backup a step. The hardware is UEFI or BIOS based? Unknown at this moment. I have yet to pick a MB. So far I have decided to base the system on a Socket 1150 / I5-4670 CPU, I am still deciding about the mobo. OK well all of this is different if you go UEFI. Pretty much nothing I've said applies to UEFI and that includes there being no such thing as installing boot loaders to partitions. There are no MBRs or VBRs. Instead there's a UEFI boot manager, and almost invariably you'll have to get familiar with that in order to choose which OS you want to boot, because a unified grub menu that shows all linux distros just isn't working reliably for everyone yet. You could even choose to not deal with GRUB2 on UEFI for that matter, you could use gummiboot or rEFInd, both of which are smarter about multibooting linux distros. However, no autogeneration of configuration file, so you have to learn some scripting. Nothing approaching what's required to know about GRUB however which is god awful complicated for just being a bootloader. Chris-- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
Re: sharing /boot among multible Linux distros
On 11/27/2013 04:24 AM, Chris Murphy wrote: On Nov 26, 2013, at 7:39 PM, Ralf Corsepius rc040...@freenet.de wrote: On 11/26/2013 11:56 PM, poma wrote: On 26.11.2013 23:18, Michael Schwendt wrote: That's because your setup is wrong. If I were you, I would install a bootloader into the boot sector of each of your /boot partitions and chainload them from your MBR. Are you kidding? I guess, he isn't. It's what I recommend, too. It's the only way to make sure the different OSes/distros bootloaders do not interfere with each other. Well it's not a good recommendation to do what is explicitly not recommended by GRUB devs. Correct, they are warning about it, but this doesn't mean their recommendation is any good. To me, this is just one of those many grub2 usability regression. grub-install spits out a warning if you try to do this, by the way. It requires the user pass --force for it to work. And --force also isn't supported by anaconda for 4-5 Fedora releases now. Right. Why do you think people like me have been complaining about anaconda? Its usability has regressed. This is issue is one detail contributing to it. It can't be used if /boot is on XFS or LVM or md RAID, all of which lack boot loader padding areas, so fewer configurations are supported. Well, I am using one dedicated boot partition for each Linux distro and a common /boot and so far haven't had any problems. The earlier suggestion to have the primary grub.cfg include an entry using configfile to point to each distribution's grub.cfg is the better way to handle this. From my experience, this a way which is guaranteed to kill your system in longer terms, because different distros' grub configs are too different. Each distribution updates only their own grub.cfg. And as far as I'm aware, no distribution ever re-runs grub-install, Distro upgrades and rescuing installations may do so. Ralf -- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
