Debian grub issue with slackware 13 with ext4 filesystem .........

honeybadger · 10-19-2009, 11:33 AM

I have installed Debian 5.0 and Slackware 12.2 on my pc. Everything works fine. Now I am trying to clean install Slackware 13.0 on the Slackware partition. The thing is I am more comfortable using grub so I do not install Slackware's lilo.
So I do not install lilo and since the grub is not touched I expect the Slackware 13.0 to work properly. Well, I am trying to install ext4 as defalut file system on slackware however grub is not able to boot into the slackware. Seems like if I install slackware in ext3 there is no issue but ext4 causes an issue.

There are a few things I can do - something like upgrading the grub but I have never done that so I am hesistant. No boot pcs scare me

So are there any pointers you can give me or any workarounds?

Thanks for the read...

pljvaldez · 10-19-2009, 11:41 AM

You could make a small ext3 /boot partition for Slackware (like 100MB) and that should fix it. Or maybe try installing lilo to the slackware partition instead of to the MBR and then chainload it from grub. Not sure if this will work or if the ext4 problem will still prevent you from booting Slack.

If you did want to update grub, you just have to do aptitude install grub2. I think the syntax (and maybe the name) of the menu.lst program is different for grub2, so you may need to learn a bit about the new config file.

slackd · 10-19-2009, 08:22 PM

Check this out, this trick solves the issue:

Here

rkrishna · 10-19-2009, 11:24 PM

Quote:

You could make a small ext3 /boot partition for Slackware (like 100MB) and that should fix it. Or maybe try installing lilo to the slackware partition instead of to the MBR and then chainload it from grub. Not sure if this will work or if the ext4 problem will still prevent you from booting Slack

hi SilverBack, as pljvaldez pointed, you can install lilo to the root partition of slack and chainload it from the grub of debian. this works even for slack ext4.

i am running slack 13,-ext4, chainloaded from the grub of opensuse 11.1.

add an appropriate entry, something like this, in debian grub.

Code:

title Slackware 13
    rootnoverify (hd0,x)
    chainloader +1
    boot

when u install lilo, install with graphical menu. the cool slackware logo is so cool

thanks slackd slackd for the link

regards rkrishna

lumak · 10-20-2009, 12:28 PM

Just so you know Grub is old and not maintained. You need a patch to boot any new filesystems. This is also why it doesn't work with x86_64. All development is now being done on Grub2.

pljvaldez · 10-20-2009, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lumak

Just so you know Grub is old and not maintained. You need a patch to boot any new filesystems. This is also why it doesn't work with x86_64. All development is now being done on Grub2.

This not quite true. It is maintained for bug fixes and security fixes. But you are correct in that it is no longer actively developed. Any new features, filesystems, etc. are not supported. Also, grub does work on x86_64 (at least in Debian). I assume the Debian developers have patched it accordingly.

mRgOBLIN · 10-20-2009, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pljvaldez

I assume the Debian developers have patched it accordingly.

That's always comforting

sahko · 10-20-2009, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lumak

You need a patch to boot any new filesystems. This is also why it doesn't work with x86_64.

Actually GRUB doesnt work on x86_64 because of the way it works. GRUB2 doesnt work on x86_64 either and neither will any future version if some of the basics of its design dont change.

pljvaldez · 10-20-2009, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sahko

Actually GRUB doesnt work on x86_64 because of the way it works. GRUB2 doesnt work on x86_64 either and neither will any future version if some of the basics of its design dont change.

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "doesn't work". I can use it to boot a 64-bit OS of any type. I think in that fashion it's like the BIOS. The BIOS doesn't care if it's 32 bit or 64 bit. It just passes control over to the bootloader.

slackass · 10-20-2009, 07:09 PM

I'm using this grub package to boot Slack64 and it dose support ext4.
ftp://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/...nt/extra/grub/
It's a 32 bit package but will install on Slack64.
I do however use a separate boot partition.

sahko · 10-20-2009, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pljvaldez

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "doesn't work".

Bad choice of words from my part. Apologies.
By work i mean it doesnt compile on anything other than x86_32. Your distributions bootloader has been compiled on such an architecture and uploaded on all others repositories as well.
LiLo doesnt suffer from such an illness.

edit: and by the way a fact many people nowadays tend to forget, or simply ignore, or dont care, or whatever about it, is that GRUB (all versions) , as far as the GNU is conserned is still alpha software. Thats why it never left ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/
On the other hand LiLo is more than 15 years old.

lumak · 10-21-2009, 12:36 PM

grub is for people without backup boot disks to recover their system and or can't remember to type a command as root after updating the configuration and adding a new boot option. Honestly, using grub would be like using HURD :P

pljvaldez · 10-21-2009, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lumak

grub is for people without backup boot disks to recover their system and or can't remember to type a command as root after updating the configuration and adding a new boot option. Honestly, using grub would be like using HURD :P

Maybe we should avoid starting another flame war.

I've used both and tend to use whatever the distro supplies as default.

kapz · 11-17-2009, 09:23 PM

I think everyone has answered you querry pretty much. Time to mark it solved?

Well you can also try what I did. Update Grub. Yep mate reinstall it and directly boot slack 13 kernel image, it works vanilla, and as the future is going to be all ext4.

honeybadger · 11-18-2009, 03:09 PM

Actually it was the chainloader entry that solved the issue.

Good to be hearing from you kapz.