How to boot Slackware with GRUB?

autior · 04-05-2012, 01:57 AM

Hi guys, I just finished to install Slackware on my net-book, but before of doing it, I installed Debian with GRUB. So, I tried to log in Debian and launch grub-update, but it doesn't recoignize Slack. What I have to do to boot it with GRUB?

Thanks.

TommyC7 · 04-05-2012, 04:05 AM

You might have to edit the grub configuration file by hand.

Code:

editor /boot/grub/grub.conf

Then you'll need to add in Slackware into that file, something like...

Code:

title Slackware
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-<kernel> root=/dev/sda1

There will be a few things you need to manually change from my example. The first is the root (hd0,0). That is the partition in which the kernel is located. GRUB doesn't discriminate between the old IDE drives and the newer SATA drives, so even though my example looks like it links only to hda1, it also links to sda1. The first 0 refers to the drive letter, in this case "a" while the second number refers to the partition number both starting from 0. For example, hd(2,1) could be either hdc2 or sdc2. Just make sure you get the correct partition that has the kernel in it.

The next part selects which kernel we're going to be using from the partition. We know it's in /dev/sda1, so we just need to find it a bit more specifically. In this case the kernel is located in /boot, and then we identify which kernel.

The next part on the same line after that identifies the real root directory. Basically where / is located. This time, it does discriminate between the old IDE drivers and the newer SATA drivers, but it is exactly the way "fdisk" would show it, and in the example, it's /dev/sda1.

yancek · 04-05-2012, 09:21 AM

Using the correct command would be a good place to start. Boot in to Debian and log in as root in a terminal. If you have the latest version of Debian, it is using Grub2. As root run: update-grub rather than grub-update.

If that is just a typo and you actually ran the correct command, it would be useful if you gave some detail about what actually happens.

If you have an older version of Debian with Grub Legacy, the suggestions above should work but I would expect to find a menu.lst file and not a grub.conf file in the /boot/grub/ directory.

autior · 04-05-2012, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TommyC7

You might have to edit the grub configuration file by hand.

Code:

editor /boot/grub/grub.conf

Then you'll need to add in Slackware into that file, something like...

Code:

title Slackware
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-<kernel> root=/dev/sda1

There will be a few things you need to manually change from my example. The first is the root (hd0,0). That is the partition in which the kernel is located. GRUB doesn't discriminate between the old IDE drives and the newer SATA drives, so even though my example looks like it links only to hda1, it also links to sda1. The first 0 refers to the drive letter, in this case "a" while the second number refers to the partition number both starting from 0. For example, hd(2,1) could be either hdc2 or sdc2. Just make sure you get the correct partition that has the kernel in it.

The next part selects which kernel we're going to be using from the partition. We know it's in /dev/sda1, so we just need to find it a bit more specifically. In this case the kernel is located in /boot, and then we identify which kernel.

The next part on the same line after that identifies the real root directory. Basically where / is located. This time, it does discriminate between the old IDE drivers and the newer SATA drivers, but it is exactly the way "fdisk" would show it, and in the example, it's /dev/sda1.

I have tried to modify the file '/etc/grub.d/40_custom' writing the three lines as you suggested, so now it look like this:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
title Slackware 13.37
root (hd0,8)
#The Slackware partition is sda9, I used fdisk to bbe sure of that
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-amd64 root=/dev/sda9
#Simply the kernel I found in the /boot/

But no new line appeared in Grub menu. Then I tried to do update-grub again, but nothing changed..

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

Using the correct command would be a good place to start. Boot in to Debian and log in as root in a terminal. If you have the latest version of Debian, it is using Grub2. As root run: update-grub rather than grub-update.

If that is just a typo and you actually ran the correct command, it would be useful if you gave some detail about what actually happens.

If you have an older version of Debian with Grub Legacy, the suggestions above should work but I would expect to find a menu.lst file and not a grub.conf file in the /boot/grub/ directory.

I'm sorry, I was referring to update-grub, my bad. Anyway yes, I'm using the latest version of Debian, and installed GRUB (version: 1.98+20100804-14+squeeze1) in the MBR. I have 4 OS installed in the Hard Disk: Windows 7, Debian Squeeze, Fedora 16 and Slackware 13.37, and everything except Slackware have been recognized by GRUB (that, anyway, don't give me any error or something). When I installed Slackware I haven't installed LILO... I don't know what other info could be useful, just ask me and I'll do my best.

yancek · 04-05-2012, 02:17 PM

The suggestions by TommyC7 will only work on Grub Legacy which you do not have. When you run update-grub, do you not see any output referring to Slackware?

The easiest way to get information so that someone can help you would be to run the bootinfoscript and post the results.txt file here. That will provide detailed information on your boot files and partitions. The link to it is below, read the instructions first:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/