LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] How do I make the bootloader include Slackware in its' menu?

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Robert.Thompson

01-06-2011 02:24 PM

How do I make the bootloader include Slackware in its' menu?

Hello:

To an empty disk I installed:
1) Windows XP

(& then shrank it's partition to make room for OpenSuse)

2) OpenSuse with grub installed on the MBR

(& then shrank the home partition & created a new root and home partition for Slackware 13.1)

*** These two OSes dual-booted properly ***

3) Slackware 13.1 with LiLo installed to the superblock of the Slackware root partition (sda8).

How do I get Slackware to be a 'working' selection on the boot menu?

Thanks,

Hannes Worst

01-06-2011 02:49 PM

Best add a menu-entry to grub menu.lst or grub.cfg (if it's Grub2). You can find suggestions http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/unable-to-boot-slackware-off-suse-grub-841705/[/URL]here. Hope this will be helpful.
You can try to chainload, or boot Slackware directly from Grub. When you try to boot directly, take in account the drive where your slackware-partition is located (hd0,?), where Grub can find the root (root=/dev/sda?) the specific kernel you use (/boot/vmlinuz) and the initrd (/boot/initrd.gz) that goes with it. Good luck!

Robert.Thompson

01-06-2011 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hannes Worst (Post 4215648)

Best add a menu-entry to grub menu.lst or grub.cfg (if it's Grub2). You can find suggestions http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...e-grub-841705/here. Hope this will be of help. Good luck!

Huston, we've got a problem...

Right now, I can only boot into XP or OpenSuse.

Is there a way to solve this problem from OpenSuse?

Thanks,

Hannes Worst

01-06-2011 03:13 PM

I understood your Grub configuration-file is located in your OpenSuse install? There you can try to add different menu-entries and see if they work.

For instance:

title Slackware 13.1
root (hd0,?) - number of your partition
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda?) ro
initrd /boot/initrd.gz
boot

You might have to specify the vmlinuz and the initrd. I can't help you with that, I have Slackware 12.2 on my machine.

trademark91

01-06-2011 03:17 PM

grub or grub2?

heres my menuentry for grub2

Code:

menuentry 'Slackware x64' --class slackware --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os --group group_main {

        insmod ext2

        set root='(hd0,5)'

        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set ec864947-9f4c-4d68-a7b2-376254d1c92e

        echo    'Loading Slackware ...'

        linux  /boot/vmlinuz-generic-2.6.35.7 root=UUID=ec864947-9f4c-4d68-a7b2-376254d1c92e ro quiet vga=791

        echo    'Loading initial ramdisk ...'

        initrd  /boot/initrd.gz

}

Robert.Thompson

01-06-2011 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hannes Worst (Post 4215674)

I understood your Grub configuration-file is located in your OpenSuse install?

Well, so did I but when I took a look at the menu.lst file in OpenSuse, it was empty!

Either there is another file or it didn't install the way I thought. Suffice it to say that I am really confused now.

I'm afraid that I really don't no where my start up menu is coming from.

Is there a way to tell?

Thanks,

Robert.Thompson

01-06-2011 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trademark91 (Post 4215681)

grub or grub2?

I am not sure...

I looked on the OpenSuse web site and I believe that they are saying that because there are still some unresolved issues with grub2 that they are using grub.

If that is true, I expected to find something in /boot/grub/menu.lst, right? It is empty.

So now I am more confused than ever!

syg00

01-06-2011 04:07 PM

Go to sf.net and get the bootinfoscript - run that from a (Suse) terminal and post the RESULTS.txt
Will save all the guessing.

Robert.Thompson

01-06-2011 04:18 PM

1 Attachment(s)

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00 (Post 4215729)

Go to sf.net and get the bootinfoscript - run that from a (Suse) terminal and post the RESULTS.txt
Will save all the guessing.

Here it is:

trademark91

01-06-2011 04:31 PM

well, your menu.lst is in the /boot/grub/ folder on dev/sda6

and you're running grub, not grub2

just add slackware to the grub menu. should do the trick.

boot into suse, go to a terminal,

Code:

su -

nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

add slackware

then reboot and see if that does the trick.

Robert.Thompson

01-06-2011 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trademark91 (Post 4215768)

well, your menu.lst is in the /boot/grub/ folder on dev/sda6

and you're running grub, not grub2

just add slackware to the grub menu. should do the trick.

boot into suse, go to a terminal,

Code:

su -

nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

add slackware

then reboot and see if that does the trick.

I am sorry about all this confusion. I think it was caused by my inability to use OpenSuse correctly. I used Dolphin to find menu.lst and then opened it with 'KWrite'. When I did this, nothing appear. (Won't do that again)

When I read the Results.txt file, I knew that I was screwing up somehow.

Using your nano command worked perfectly.

I will now attempt to add the Slackware stuff and see what happens.

Thanks a lot for your help,

Robert.Thompson

01-06-2011 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trademark91 (Post 4215768)

boot into suse, go to a terminal,

Code:

su -

nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

add slackware

then reboot and see if that does the trick.

Sorry, but I am not sure what to enter.

I assume, as far as it goes, the following is correct:

###My slackware attempt
title Slackware
root (hd0,8)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-generic-2.6.33.4

But don't I need an 'initrd' entry too? And then stuff following the both the 'kernel' and 'initrd' entry?

Thanks for your patience - the Slackware book just shows stuff for LiLo,

trademark91

01-06-2011 05:31 PM

if you are booting the generic kernel, youre going to need an initrd. but you probably didnt make one yet. so heres what you do. direct it to the huge kernel and run

Code:

su -

mkinitrd -c -k 2.6.33.4 -f ext4 -r /dev/sda* -m usbhid:ehci-hcd:uhci-hcd:jbd2:mbcache:ext4 -o /boot/initrd.gz

replace the * with the partition number for your slackware installation
and then direct grub to /boot/initrd.gz, and change the kernel to the generic one.

yancek

01-06-2011 05:35 PM

Your Slackware entry is incorrect: The bootinfo script shows Slackware on sda8. Opensuse uses Grub Legacy which counts both drives and partitions beginning with zero so the entry should be:

root (hd0,7)

If you don't want to hassle with the kernel/initrd entries, you could just chainload:

title Slackware
root (hd0,7)
chainloader +1

The reason you didn't get anything in Kwrite when you tried to access menu.lst is most likely because you were doing it as a regular user, only root usually has access on many systems.

Larry Webb

01-06-2011 06:29 PM

If you can use suse yast to hopefully chainload your Slack. Use your menu button on desktop then click on Computer, then YaST. You will need to enter your root password and then select

System (in left panel)

boot loader (right panel)

and then you can select the 'add' button at the lower left and then you will need to figure how and what you want to load.

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