Adding Fedora11 and Ubuntu 9.04 back to menu.lst

Jeff91 · 08-24-2009, 10:45 AM

I just installed OpenSUSE 11.1 along side my Ubuntu 9.04 and Fedora11 installs, how ever the OpenSUSE grub installer did not auto detect my other distros and add them to the grub list as Ubuntu does. How can I about adding them manually? My Ubuntu resides on the sdb6 partition and my Fedora resides on sdb8

Thanks,
~Jeff

yancek · 08-24-2009, 11:32 AM

If you are certain you are using the Opensuse bootloader, the simplest thing to do is to go to the Fedora and Ubuntu /boot/grub partitions and find the menu.lst files there and copy them to Opensuse menu.lst. Need to be root to do this of course.

If you are unable to access Fedora and/or Ubuntu from Opensue, you will need to mount them.

PTrenholme · 08-24-2009, 11:36 AM

May we assume that you've gone, from the Computer->YaST menu, to the System->Boot Loader configuration tool, and tried to do it from there?

Here's a typical Fedora boot stanza:

Code:

title Fedora (2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64) from /dev/hdb8
        root (hd1,7)                            
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64 ro root=UUID=ffccf6e4-8321-46a7-9ef0-48e2aeedc325 quiet rhgb
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64.img

and a Ubuntu one:

Code:

title           Ubuntu Jaunty, kernel 2.6.28-9-generic from /dev/sdb6
        root (hd1,5)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-9-generic root=UUID=4969328e-e7ce-4c86-a6f9-e4c565e30ef4 ro quiet splash
        initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-9-generic

Note that the UUID values are usually found in /dev/disk/by-uuid (via a ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid), and that the UUID= . . . part may be replaces by a LABEL= (if your labels are unique) or a simple /dev/sdb? if you're not concerned about moving you drives around.

Note also that GRUB provides a RAM copy editor for it's boot information, so you can usually just press the escape key when the GRUB boot menu is displayed and experiment with different boot stanza configuration 'till you find one that works. (The RAM image changes are, of course, only temporary, so you'll need to write down what worked and edit it into the GURB boot menu.) Oh, the "tab compleation" function in the GRUB editor is handy for discovering the correct files and partition numbers. (A hint: to see the available files in, say, (hd1,5) for a [kernel line, type (in an open line) kernel (hd1,5)/vml<tab>. The (hd1,5) is needed because the root (hd1,5) command is on a different line, and hasn't been processed when you're editing a new line.)

Jeff91 · 08-24-2009, 11:54 AM

Do you also know what a stand OpenSUSE one looks like? I needed to get back into Ubuntu so I installed the Ubuntu boot loader over the SUSE one so now I need to add Fedora/SUSE back to it.

Thanks,
~Jeff

Jeff91 · 08-24-2009, 01:36 PM

Hrm I added the following to my menu.lst for Fedora and it gives me an Error 15 in grub when I select it:

Code:

title Fedora 11
root (hd0,7)                            
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64 ro root=UUID=12f71a0d-b1b9-48ea-8dca-e1326a2fd351 quiet rhgb
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64.img

~Jeff

PTrenholme · 08-24-2009, 02:21 PM

Did you verify those settings in the GRUB RAM editor? Error 15 is, IIRC, a "file not found" error.

Note: The default F11 installation is to use two partitions: One ext3 boot partition and a second LVM partition containing swap and an ext4 file system for everything except /boot. So, if you used the defaults when you installed, the /boot would be incorrect, since /dev/sdb8 would already be /boot, and the rest of F11 would be on /dev/sdb9 as a LV.

You may, of course, have not used the defaults. But, anyhow, it's easy to verify in the RAM editor.

Note also that the GRUB used by Ubuntu is a more recent version than the one used by other distributions, where the root ... directive may be replaced by a uuid directive, and other boot options are supported. When I boot my F11 using the Ubuntu GRUB, the F11 boot stanza looks like this:

Code:

## END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.                                                                    

title           --- Fedora 11 x86_64
root                                

title Kernel 2.6.29.6-217.2.8
uuid            78b0b290-2ee7-46b1-a6b5-6eae61531fec
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64 ro root=UUID=ffccf6e4-8321-46a7-9ef0-48e2aeedc325 quiet
initrd          /boot/initrd-2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64.img
savedefault                                                                                                

title Kernel 2.6.29.6-217.2.8 (recovery mode)
uuid            78b0b290-2ee7-46b1-a6b5-6eae61531fec
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64 ro root=UUID=ffccf6e4-8321-46a7-9ef0-48e2aeedc325 quiet 3
initrd          /boot/initrd-2.6.29.6-217.2.8.fc11.x86_64.img

<edit>
Note that the uuid directive specifies a different uuid than the one used in the kernel line. That's because the Ubuntu GRUB is set to look in the Ubuntu /boot directory for the F11 boot images. I have to do it that way because the brain-dead BIOS of this laptop will not let me boot from sdb where I have my F11 installed, so I can only boot from sda where I keep Jaunty. (The BIOS problem is that my sdb is a 320Gb SATA, and its too fast (3Gb/sec) for the BIOS to handle. F11 has to slow the access to 1.5Gb/sec to make it work, which the kernel does as it boots.)
</edit>