I'm slowly setting up Slackware 13.1 to replace OpenSuse as my main distro. Suse uses grub legacy as its bootloader, and I'm happy with it and used to using it. Slackbuilds is setup to use grub2, but since it's not compatible with grub legacy, it's not an option.

Right now, if I make any changes to booting either Slackware or Suse, I have to run grub only from Suse to write to the MBR, so my thoughts are to compile grub legacy on Slackware so I can write to the MBR from whichever distro I'm running at the time. I can simply keep identical menu.lst in both Suse and Slackware /boot/grub directories and run the grub.

Is this a good or bad idea? Any caveats? Any better suggestions?

Thanks for your time.

Grub 0.97 (that's legacy, isn't it?) is in /extra on the Slack DVD, or from a mirror.
I'm satisfied with lilo.

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I was a GRUB user from moment I started using Linux. My Slackware install was without any bootloader because I didn't knew that lilo is another one.

However, I use GRUB (legacy) on my main machine and on my Netbook as well. If you use an extra /boot-partition you need to trick a bit, if you want to create a menu.lst with grubconfig. Otherwise I'd recommend to save one on an extra usb device or somewhere else.

If you're used to use GRUB, take it. It's not a bad idea as long as you get it working.

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Thanks for the quick replies.

I used LILO for many years, since I first installed Slackware v1 back in 1994. Since I want to edit the MBR from either distro using the same bootloader, it's either install grub on Slack, or LILO on Suse.

Thanks brianL for pointing out /extra. grub 0.97 even has a SlackBuild script with it. I'm good to go.

????.
Your inabilty to make either/both wok with each other is probably a poor basis for such a wide-ranging claim.
As far as I'm concerned grub2 was foisted onto the users unready, but it can be made to work.

Actually, it's not my inability, it's I haven't even tried making them work together, and probably won't bother to spend the time. From what I've read in my research, there's different syntax for each, so I took that as incompatibility.

I could spend my time making them work together, or I could spend it playing golf....simple choice.

The way I do it is I have lilo on the boot sector of sda1 and use
to chain load Fedora's grub loader which is installed on sda3.
Doing it this way means they can each manage their own loader.

You can use either Grub2 or Grub legacy in Slackware.

I am using Grub legacy in 64 bit Slackware. No problems so far.

It comes precompiled for 32 bit. For 64 bit, you have to compile it yourself after installing multilib.

I have been dual booting Ubuntu + Slackware (both 32bit and 64bit Slackware) using Ubuntu's grub2 with no problems at all.
Grub2 uses different configuration files that you need to learn. Otherwise, there is no reason to worry about using grub2 as far as I have experienced.

The advantage of GRUB of GRUB2 is, that Slackware ships GRUB Legacy within /extra. You don't have to download anything, you just have to mount the DVD/CD again, install and configure it.

I have five operating systems on two drives,so I have installed GRUB 0.97 on drive 1 and GRUB 0.98 on drive 2... they both do the same job and I can choose between them,I did this so I can learn more of whats going on in the GRUB universe...

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Errm, thre is no GRUB 0.98. Maybe you mean 1.97, aka GRUB2 ?

Spot on just testing you... LOL 1.98 1.97 ... 1.97 is legacy and 1.98 is where it changes towards GRUB2...

1.97 is not legacy. 0.97 is legacy. o.O

0.97 is legacy, 1.90 is the break for GRUB2.ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/