In my quest for knowledge (my usual excuse) :-) , yesterday I installed UbuntuLinux into my pc. in order not to mess up the already working setup, I had set Ubuntu's grub to a floppy.

now i have:
hda1 - WinME
hda3 - SuSE
hbd6 - Ubuntu

wanted to add Ubuntu into the existing (installed when installing SUSE) Grub so that I can boot Ubuntu without using the floppy.
Went into the floppy's grub and copied the config, then copied this information into the existing grub.

after reboot, when i select this option to boot, I get "kernel panic" and the system hangs. Try to mess with grub with after surfing for info but still can't get it working.

1. Any idea how i can add Ubuntu into the existing grub?

2. When using Konqueror, I cannot see Ubuntu's hdb6. Can this be added in?

3. I am new to linux and seems like SUSE is very much more easy to start with. In Ubuntu, I can only see Ubuntu and nothing else (no winME and SuSE partition), or is it that I mess up something unknowingly.

4. How can I share SUSE's home partition instead of using another home in Ubuntu.


Many thanks in advance for the advice.

the grub.conf file is usually located in /boot/grub directory. If /boot is empty, then your boot partition is not mounted. mount it like this:

mount /boot

Then the contents shoud appear.


Use any editor to edit the file grub.conf and just try to copy the suse lines (you will have to modify them accordingly).

If you have any further questions, post them here.

"1. Any idea how i can add Ubuntu into the existing grub? "

How about posting /boot/grub/menu.lst as it now stands. You also might look up each of the keywords in your /boot/grub/menu.lst in the grub manual to see if you can see what is wrong.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html

"2. When using Konqueror, I cannot see Ubuntu's hdb6. Can this be added in?"

I assume that you mean Konqueror in SuSE. If so then you can mount /dev/hda6 on a directory mountpoint. Assuming that your Ubuntu partition has an ext3 file system then the commands are:
mkdir /ubuntu
mount -t ext3 /dev/hda6 /ubuntu

Once you get that working you can make the mount permanent by changing /etc/fstab in SuSE to mount /dev/hda6 on /ubuntu.

"3. I am new to linux and seems like SUSE is very much more easy to start with. In Ubuntu, I can only see Ubuntu and nothing else (no winME and SuSE partition), or is it that I mess up something unknowingly."

You can boot into Ubuntu and go throught a similar process to 2. to mount the SuSE partition in Ubuntu.

"4. How can I share SUSE's home partition instead of using another home in Ubuntu."

Create a new partition. Then move the contents of the home directory to the new partition. Then make the /home directories in both Ubuntu and SuSE mountpoints for your new /home partition.

--------------------------
Steve Stites

I had an almost identical problem when I installed Ubuntu along with SuSE. If the previous posts don't help try booting into suse and mount the partition where Ubuntu put the kernel. initrd.img and vmlinuz should be links to similarly named files in /boot (i.e. /boot/initrd.img-2.6.10-5-386). When I put the full file names into grub.conf instead of the links the kernel panic problem went away. I can show you what my grub.conf looks like if you like.

hi all,

Item 1.
I'm still trying, googling, hope I'll get it right
all for the love of learning and the feel of banging my head against the wall

Chritine_lewis, appreciate if you could share your grub.conf, thanks.


Item 2.
Done, used Yast harddisk partition tool and it asked for a mounting point and next reboot Konqueror will recognise it.

Item 3.
Reading the Unofficial Guide now and hopefully will get the answer there

Item 4.
Gave up the idea after some consideration.

Ubuntu as well as SUSE both use the file /boot/grub/menu.lst for the boot menu (not grub.conf, like RedHat). So what you do is:

Find the file /boot/grub/menu.lst on your Ubuntu partition (either boot into ubuntu, or mount the partition under SUSE, as stated above).
Now, copy and paste the section starting with 'title' from the Ubuntu menu.lst to the SUSE menu.lst. This section should contain the title (will appear in the menu), the specification of the root device (root (hdx,y)) and two lines pointing to the kernel and initrd. You can probably choose from several of those entries, of which the first one boots your normal systen, the other is for safe mode). You can also paste them all.

This link has good information about grub:
http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2002/0..._overview.html

Ok, so as abisko00 points out it's not actually grub.conf. I edited it in yast so I hadn't been that concerned with what the file was. Oops . Anyway here is what the relevant part of menu.lst look like:

Since I only have two harddrives I've got Ubuntu on hdb in the second partition (hence the hd1,1... since it counts from zero). As you said you had Ubuntu on hdb6, you'll probably want to substitute "hd1,5" for my "hd1,1"'s and "hdb6" for "hdb2".

Other than that, you may be using a different kernel so the 2.6.10-5-386 might be different for you.

Hope that helps - Christine

"Item 3.
Reading the Unofficial Guide now and hopefully will get the answer there "

You can do it by booting into Ubuntu and logging in as root. Assuming that the SuSE partition is formatted as ext3 then you issue the commands:

mkdir /SuSE
mount -t ext3 /dev/hda3 /SuSE

If you want to make this mount permanent across boots then edit /etc/fstab to include a line something like this:

/dev/hda3 /SuSE ext3 defaults 1 2

-------------------------
Steve Stites

Finally, with the above I'm able to boot Ubuntu from SuSE's grub.

A big THANKs to all.