Just wondering if anyone is using grub to boot more than one linux os and how they did it.

I am currently running RH, WindowsXP and attempting to run debian & slackware as well but grub doesn't pick up my slack & debian os's

any clues?

you have posted more than 100 times in this forum
that must mean that you have browsed through the forum
i am sure that the answer is somewhere round
anyway
grub supports ext2,ext3,jfs,reiserfs,xfs ,minix
so your root partition of slackware and debian has to be any of the above
now while booting type c to get to the grub command prompt
i am sure that you can identify your debian and slackware partition
(lets say they are /dev/hda5 and /dev/hda6 from fdisk -l (non devfs system))
now on the grub command prompt
type kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz-(your kernel of debian/slackwire,provided you don't have boot partition)
you can get the full pathname by simply pressing tab after vmlinuz
now load the initrd similarly
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd
now simply press boot
example
grub>>kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 mount=devfs ro
grub>>initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img
grub>>boot
keep posted

buy one more HDD for other OS lah.

yes I have searched the forums....
no I haven't found the answer that way...
yes I have tried booting similar to the way you had suggested without success so was thinking I had stuffed up in some way.

when I installed debian, I set it to boot from floppy.

I could not find an initrd in /boot on my debian to load.

I am also doing all of this on a laptop so cannot put another harddrive in, or believe me I would have..

pick them up? what do you mean by that? you will need to add them in your config file /boot/grub/grub.conf (or menu.lst) and like the guy said above, set the other partitions to boot via a chainloader command. if you don't know what the parttitions are called use "fdisk -l /dev/hda" to list the partition numbers. then you need to convert them to grub ids, so change the letter for the alphabetical number it is, less one, a= 0 b = 1 etc, and then take one off of the partition number as well. the grub manpage should have a good amount of info. also the section in the http://gentoo.org installation docs near the end give a good quick step by step guide to setting up grub for you.

ok, my lingo is wonky..
I edited grub.conf, added a section to point to my debian partition
ie:
title Debian
root (hd0,8)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-bf2.4 ro root=/dev/hda8 hdc=ide-scsi
couldn't find a reference to initrd in debian boot.
being a nonce at linux, left it out.
booted grub returned message "file not found"
did as wonderfully friendly soundin rch said and searched the forums,
read manual at grub site, still none the wiser. all before posting here.. (should I have flagelated myself too? -probably be more fun )
read rch's oh so friendly response, and am ever so greatful that he replied to such a worthless simpleton such that I am.
followed his suggestion to boot, enter command line and try that way.. Oh-oh bios doesn't recognised cylinders that large or something.. (only 6 month's old this laptop, kinda thought it would be able to cope)
lots of funky code, rebooted to RH and here I am.
so bend me over and spank me!

will do some reading on gentoo's site. see if I can find anything.

Ahhh sarcasm.. the lowest form of wit!

you have lost me on the chainloader bit tho acid_kewpie I thought that was for windows partitions?

i'm not that experience with grub, but that kernel line should be using a relative path on a direct partition, so if you have a specific /boot partition it should read (hd0,2)/vmlinuz not /boot/vmlinuz or even (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz.

ahh.. mm..
me being a dilberry does'nt have no /boot partition...
'bout time I wiped all me linux stuff and started again..
this time I'm going to have a /boot partition, /home partition, /usr partition, and then a few more for my linux os's, was thinking about a /var partition too, but I would probably need one for each os no?
what sort of size do you recommend for a /boot partition? I presume it could be fairly small, ie 50mb or less?

also thinking maybe I should go lilo for boot loader, might avoid the cylinder too large problem..?

if you don't have a boot partition that's still fine, just add the (hd0,8) to the start of the /boot/ path you've already got.

afaik grub has no 1024 cyl issue either, should be fine.

well your system may not have a ramdisk image
so you can safely remove the initrd one
initrd is used mainly to load modules before your os boots up
like ext3 module before your root partition is mounted (if it is ext3)
I am suprised that the answer for your problem is not in the forum.And of course everybody starts as a newbie.
File not found means that the file is not there
If you don't have a boot partition check the spelling of the image
one way to find out your debian and all linux partitions in grub
is
grub>>find /etc/fstab (no boot partition)
or
grub>>find /boot.b (boot partition)
it lists out the possible linux partitions
one of them must be debian
being funny?!
ok ok
i have been accused before of not being friendly
(click search and go through dynamic disk)
see info grub
about your boot errors
but there should not be a lba32 kind of error in grub

yes it is
keep posted