dual booting Slackware to Ubuntu

waddles · 03-25-2013, 11:40 AM

Have Slack on hard drive and using Lilo to attempt to chain boot. The Ubuntu uses Grub and I do not know if it uses MBR or /root. When I test lilo.conf settings:
other = /dev/sdc1
table = /dev/sda
label = Ubuntu
to boot Ubuntu I get: a warning about the table and to use lilo -P fix
but when I run lilo -P fix -t -v I get:
Warning: The partition table is *NOT* being adjusted.
Fatal: First sector of /dev/sdc1 doesn't have a valid boot signature
The first sector has shows bootable. I had modified the install after having used a VFAT 1-st sector so it is ext4 now.
Can someone explain why am turning in circles here as I apparently have no idea what is expected as a boot signature. Does this have anything to do with Ubuntu using grub and Slack using Lilo or where Ubuntu puts the loader?

Skaperen · 03-25-2013, 12:19 PM

I had trouble getting a triple-boot of Slackware, Ubuntu, and Linuxmint working with either LILO or GRUB. In the end it was easy once I switched to SYSLINUX (extlinux). Sorry I don't have that system running anymore (it's a test box) to show the config file. I used the SYSLINUX that was part of Slackware which is a bit dated but worked.

It may be possible to this with GRUB and LILO via chain booting to the secondary system.

michaelslack · 03-25-2013, 06:40 PM

I am not certain but I thought that you could just bypass grub completely and boot ubuntu with lilo directly.

For instance, your lilo.conf might look like (this is modified from /etc/lilo.conf_example provided in slackware-14.0)

Code:

image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-2-generic
	label = "slackware"
	root = /dev/sda2
	read-only
	initrd = /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-2-generic


image = /address/of/ubuntu/kernel-image/relative/to/its/root
	label = "ubuntu"
	root = /dev/sdb1
	read-only
	initrd = /address/of/ubuntu/initrd/relative/to/its/root

Am I missing something? I suspect there is more going on here than meets the eye...

Michael

Skaperen · 03-25-2013, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelslack

I am not certain but I thought that you could just bypass grub completely and boot ubuntu with lilo directly.

For instance, your lilo.conf might look like (this is modified from /etc/lilo.conf_example provided in slackware-14.0)

Code:

image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-2-generic
	label = "slackware"
	root = /dev/sda2
	read-only
	initrd = /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-2-generic


image = /address/of/ubuntu/kernel-image/relative/to/its/root
	label = "ubuntu"
	root = /dev/sdb1
	read-only
	initrd = /address/of/ubuntu/initrd/relative/to/its/root

Am I missing something? I suspect there is more going on here than meets the eye...

Michael

In theory you should be able to. But the configuration to do so is more complex since more than one device is involved that holds a kernel and initrd image. One thing I did with my SYSLINUX install was to copy the needed files all into one common boot partition, manually. That may help for LILO, since you can configure everything as a single device.

w1k0 · 03-26-2013, 05:53 PM

I use on the same machine Slackware Linux and Linux Mint. (I suppose that Linux Mint and Ubuntu behave similarly.) I don’t like GRUB at all so I use LILO to choose the system. That requires tricky method of the installation of GRUB in Linux Mint.

I keep Linux Mint on /dev/sda1 and Slackware Linux on /dev/sda2. I install Mint’s GRUB on /dev/sda1 and Slackware’s LILO on /dev/sda.

First I start Mint.

GRUB2 refuses to be installed on the beginning of the partition instead of MBR:

grub-install /dev/sda1

Code:

    /usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: warning: File system `ext2' doesn't support embedding.
    /usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: warning: Embedding is not possible.  GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists.  However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
    /usr/sbin/grub-bios-setup: error: will not proceed with blocklists.

(GRUB2 lies in the above message because I don’t use ext2 at all.)

So I need GRUB Legacy instead:

apt-get remove grub-pc
apt-get install grub
update-grub

Now I can install GRUB:

grub-install /dev/sda1

Code:

    Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
    Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
    Installing GRUB to /dev/sda1 as (hd0,0)...
    Installation finished. No error reported.
    This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.
    Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
    fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.

    (fd0)/dev/fd0
    (hd0)/dev/sda

Then I run Slackware using the following /etc/lilo.conf:

Code:

boot = /dev/sda
compact
append=" acpi_osi=Linux apm=1 pcie_aspm=force vt.default_utf8=1 resume=/dev/sda4 acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode"
prompt
timeout = 50
vga = 791
image = /boot/vmlinuz-generic-smp-3.2.29-smp
  initrd = /boot/initrd.gz
  root = /dev/sda2
  label = slack-generic
  read-only
image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/sda2
  label = slack-huge
  read-only
other = /dev/sda1
  label = mint

Finally I rerun LILO:

lilo

That works.