Dear members,

I am a Windows Vista user and i would like to go over to a linux-based system. i fell on to Fedora and i am currently downloading a dvd-copy.
My question is: how can i install grub or grub2? I am not an expert in the matter and am willing to learn.

When trying to research on the internet, grub is explained but a simple step by step guide for Windows-users is not present.

Please advice.
Thank you in advance!

Fedora will (or should) do that automatically.

Thank you for your quick reply.

Anyway, i am still intrigued by the way to do this manually? Do i need to make a bootable cdrom or can i do this from within the windows platform?
Please advice.
Sincerely,

I'm not really sure to be honest, and I'm not sure why you'd want to! After you've installed Fedora, if you've chosen not to install GRUB (if it gives you the choice), you can probably boot from the CD and use "rescue mode" (or the equivalent) to install GRUB. Other than that, perhaps the Fedora live CD has the grub-install program and you can use that, but again, I'm not sure about this.

FIRST
Fedora 9 is not meant / geared for the NEW Linux user depending on your hardware fedora 9 may not install or run without some "Fixing"


do you have a Vista install dvd a real install disk and not a "rescue" disk from the manufacture incase something goes wrong .
you will need to use the Windows vista tool to resize and repartition the vista disk ( this might KILL vista) .

install fedora . the default settings will replace the windows vista bootloader with GRUB on the MBR
read the documentation
http://fedoraproject.org/
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f9/en_US/
http://optics.csufresno.edu/~kriehn/...les/f9/f9.html
http://optics.csufresno.edu/~kriehn/.../f9.html#howto
---------------------------
but getting vista to boot from grub is NO PICNIC .XP would and is done automatically

Thank you for your quick reply.

You are talking about repartitioning the harddrive. I presume this is to create a new partition for the fedora platform?
Which tool in vista you are talking about and why would it kill vista?

I am not interested in installing grub into the MBR, as i have read some articles that do not advice this option. instead i could install it to the windows partition?

Is there a possibility to backup first the current boot options??

Thank you for your response.
Sincerely.

Dear John,

I particulary like your mentioned articles:
http://optics.csufresno.edu/~kriehn/...artitions.html
http://optics.csufresno.edu/~kriehn/...dual_boot.html

I have already found all of my answers in here. Thank you!

The only thing i need to know now is how to manually install grub legacy or grub 2 from scratch, presuming on,ly windows vista is installed.
Please advice.

Here's a link to the Grub Manual whre you can find an explanation of creating a Grub boot floppy or CD:

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...node/index.htm

It also has pages explaining how to install Grub although I don't know why you would do that if you are only using vista.

-- WARNING --
I do not recommend using GRUB to boot a vista ONLY box , so when you FUBAR it don't ask me to fix a vista only box

This IS the MBR if you PUT THE LINUX GRUB ON THE WINDOWS PARTITION , grub requires a nix partition to run
---------------
put the fedora dvd into the drive and reboot
go into rescue mode (9 fallow the on screen}
and after you do
maybe or maybe not , most likely NOT the system will boot .
BUT most likely you will have a brick

I don't believe the grub-install command will work as you give it, because that tells Grub to install into the MBR of sda but look for its files in whatever partition you run that command from, which is the Fedora DVD. I believe the correct syntax is:
That will install Grub to the MBR and point it to partition sdaX for all its system files, including menu.lst/grub.conf. The grub-install command does not create a menu.lst/grub.conf though, but you can do that with the "update-grub" command (but you should be chrooted into the linux partition).

Also, I'm curious why you are so against using Grub to boot Vista? The Vista MBR merely chain loads whichever primary partition on the hard drive is marked active, i.e. has its boot flag set. Grub is perfectly capable of chain loading the Vista partition, and I have many friends who use Grub to boot Vista with ease. Why do you think Grub will "brick" Vista?

if you want to install grub manually you will have to setup your system to compile from source.

which means install all the basic dev packages.. that is if you plan on compiling.

then you will need to get the dependencies for things like fat32 reiser, and maybe others for other modules.

once you compile and install.. which requires you to have root access to actually install..

then you run

grub-install --root-directory=/ /dev/sda

/dev/sda is your drive and you do not point it to the partition that is why you do not see a 1 or 2 or what ever next to the sda.

the root directory should stay like it is and you should have a folder called boot in the root of your drive and inside there, there should be a folder called grub.

/boot/grub

once you do that, then you have to configure the grub.cfg in the /boot/grub folder. then your done.