GRUB

notmatt · 07-29-2005, 08:05 PM

Hi all

I'm having some problems setting up my multiboot system. This is what my drives look like:

/dev/sda1 - 2gb of swap
/dev/sda2 - 30mb of boot
/dev/sda3 - mepis root partition
/dev/sda4 - extended partition
/dev/sda5 - spare 10gb for other distro at later date
/dev/sda6 - 20gb /home
/dev/sda7 - kubuntu root partition

Here is my GRUB menu.lst which is in the Mepis root and is installed on the MBR:

Code:

timeout 15
#color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1
#gfxmenu /boot/grub/message

title MEPIS at sda3, kernel 2.6.10
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/mepis/vmlinuz-2.6.10 root=/dev/sda3

title Kubuntu at sda7, kernel 2.6.10
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/kubuntu/vmlinuz-2.6.10-5-386 root=/dev/sda7

title MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86.bin

Here is my mepis /etc/fstab/ :

Code:

# Static entries below, do not use 'users' option in this area
/dev/sda3 / reiserfs defaults,noatime,notail 0 0
/dev/sda1 swap swap sw,pri=1 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devmode=0666 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
/dev/sda6 /home reiserfs defaults,noatime,notail 0 0

Here is my kubuntu /etc/fstab:

Code:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/sda7       /               reiserfs notail          0       1
/dev/sda6       /home           reiserfs defaults        0       2
/dev/sda1       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/hdb        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 ro,user,noauto  0       0
/dev/hda        /media/cdrom1   udf,iso9660 ro,user,noauto  0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0

When I try to boot into kubuntu it gets quite away with the boot and then crashes giving the following error:

VFS: Cannot open root dev "sda7"
Please append a correct "root=" boot operation
Kernel Panic - not syncing
VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0)

I'm dopey, I added:

/dev/sda2 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2

to my kubuntu /etc/fstab and it works fine now. Ooops

rarsa · 08-02-2005, 11:07 PM

I wish you had added a new post so this one does not stay as a 0 replies post and I did not have to read it all before realizing that you had already solved it.

Anyway, I'm glad you found the solution.

And just to educate me, I'm courious about your partition set-up:

- Why do you have such a large swap? do you have little ram and run heavy processes? Do you support many users logged in to this computer?

- What advantage do you see on having a single /boot partition for all your distros?. In my home system I only have a root partition for each distro.

- Do you share your home partition between distros? How has that helped you? What problems have you faced?

Are there advantages or is it just a matter of preference?

notmatt · 08-03-2005, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Raul Suarez
I wish you had added a new post so this one does not stay as a 0 replies post and I did not have to read it all before realizing that you had already solved it.

Sorry. I honestly wasn't expecting an answer to it now. Thanks for taking the time to read it tho.

Quote:

- Why do you have such a large swap? do you have little ram and run heavy processes? Do you support many users logged in to this computer?

Just in case really, I do have a lot of RAM, but then at the same time I often run a lot of processes. I'd rather have the space, just incase.

Quote:

- What advantage do you see on having a single /boot partition for all your distros?. In my home system I only have a root partition for each distro.

It's just a handy place to store the kernels. I'm not sure it gives me any real benefits apart from ease of configuration. Quite a few people recommend using a /boot partition for much better reasons.

Quote:

- Do you share your home partition between distros? How has that helped you? What problems have you faced?

I'd advise keeping the /home/user/ partitions in your root partition. If you want data shared across installs consider making a /data or /home/data/ partition. That is what i'm going to do. I chose usernames that were the same on all installs, it did cause some problems. KDE and Gnome trying to share the same desktop folder doesn't work!

Quote:

Are there advantages or is it just a matter of preference?

It works ok for a multi-boot system. Not experienced enough to give any advantages. I'm happy with it.

rarsa · 08-03-2005, 09:15 AM

Thanks.