just installed yoper (latest dl) on a system already running Suse 9.1 and grub. i didn't want to disrupt the other installation, so skipped the bootloader section.

what entries do i need to make to grub to boot my system?

thx,
pres

You might want to google "grub.conf" to see various samples of what others have done.

It's difficult to make any specific suggestions without knowing your PC's partition info, where yoper is installed, what your root partition is, etc. I'm assuming Grub has been correctly installed into SuSE. You'll know it is if when you type grub at the terminal (in SuSE) you get grub>>.

Try this though:
<in SuSE's /boot/grub/grub.conf
append the following: >

title Yoper_Linux
root (hd0,x) <where x is where your Yoper root partition is>
kernel /boot/<name of your yoper kernel image> ro root=/dev/hdax ('x' from above + 1)

Note: This assumes you do not have a /boot partition in Yoper (I don't, yoper install doesn't usually call for one). Again, it's hard to be too specific w/o your partition info. Give this a try though.

ahh,

thanks for the response. i found the /boot directory in the yoper partition, and copied the lnes from it into the grub.conf from suse. it booted fine until partway through and gave me a "no ext2 filesystem" error. this is rather odd, since i installed yoper on ext3 and my universal /home partition is reiser.

i reformatted the partition and installed slack complete and tried the same cut/paste trick to grub.conf and got the system to boot up fine to the command prompt. i logged in as root (i had set it up) and it dumped me at the command prompt (and told me i had mail). i tried using pine to check what the mail said, and it was a general welcome (it was cool to use pine again, i haven't used it in years!!).

then i tried to get kde to start. no idea how, so i typed kded and got an error relating to "DCOM". no idea what that is, but i REALLY want to get yoper up. i'll take another shot at it later tonight (wife is surfing the net using that comp and the Suse partition).

what i would love is a simple explanation of how linux boots, and grub. if i understood this, i would feel less inhibited compiling kernels and trying to install them etc. any good url ideas? maybe i'll luck out with Yoper.

thx,
pres

note: i'm installing yoper on hda6 (0,5) and /home is hda7. do i need to move the image files (not sure exactly what they are) to my suse /boot directory, or can i just reference them from there?

maybe that was why i got the error in the beginning? not sure why slack would boot to the command prompt if that was the problem though as i used the same process.

There is a GRUB manual available online, but here's the short version.

There are several places a boot loader can be stored. One is the MBR (master boot record) of the hard disk. That is at the very front of the drive, before any of the partitions. Another place is the beginning of each partition, called the boot sector.

Normally when the computer starts, it POSTs (power on self test), and then runs the MBR. A normal (read MS) MBR will then figure out which partition is marked bootable in the partition table, and run the boot record at the beginning of that partition. That is where Microsoft's boot loader is which passes control to windows.

GRUB comes in pieces. The first part is called 'Stage 1' and is normally placed in the MBR. Instead of looking for a bootable sector, it will pass control to another program called 'Stage 2' (I'm simplifying this a little here). How does it know where Stage 2 is? when GRUB installs itself, Stage 1 is set to point to the exact spot where Stage 2 is, regardless of filesystem and such (still simplifying). Note that Stage 2 does not sit in the boot sector, but actually in a partition.

Stage 2 is smarter that Stage 1. Stage 1 must be very small to fit in the MBR, and is therefore quite dumb. Stage 2 is smart enough to read inside filesystems. This is where you are given your menu with choices. It reads the menu.lst file (sometimes grub.conf) next to it, and figures out what the menu should look like. "title" specifies what you want to name the choice; this is what you read in the menu. After you choose an item, it uses the information in menu.lst to start the OS that you choose.

If menu.lst shows a 'chainloader' command (like you use to get GRUB to boot windows) then GRUB will pass control to the boot sector of the partition specified (where the Microsoft boot loader happily thinks a normal MBR has given it control). If it has a kernel command, it will load that kernel. You also often follow it with an initrd command and file. The things placed on the same line as your kernel are command line options for the kernel.

One note of warning: GRUB uses a different number scheme than linux. (hd0) is the first hard drive (primary master). (hd1) is the second. (hd0,0) is the first partition of the first hard drive. (hd0,2) would be the third partition of the primary master drive. Just subtract one from what you would expect and you'll be fine.

Example:

title My Linux Operation System
kernel (hda0,0)/boot/myLinuxKernel foo=ThisIsSomethingForMyLinuxKernelToUnderstand
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/anInitrdToGoWithMyLinuxKernel



Check to see if your SuSE partition has an e2fs_stage1_5 file in the SuSE /boot/grub directory. It is used to read ext2 and ext3 partitions. Ext3 is just ext2 with some additional formating. Some tools can treat them as the same.

You could also try telling the Yoper install to put the boot loader inside the partition's boot sector and use the chainloader command. For example if you're installing to hda2, then tell the installer to install the bootloader to hda2 (not hda, that's where your SuSE grub stage 1 is probably hiding). Then use this in your SuSE menu.lst:
title Yoper
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

This will bounce you from one menu to another. A minor annoyance, but it should at least be a temporary fix.


I may easily have made a mistake in here somewhere, so don't rely upon me soley, this is just an overview. If someone sees a mistake please post.

ok,

here is the down and dirty...

i'm booting my computer(s) using xosl. i fell in love with it some years ago because of the simplicity of arranging partitions and the ability to dual boot to various os's (when ms stuff still lived on my computers).

so xosl is written to mbr and chainloads a hd that looks like this:

part 1, hda1, (0,0) - boot (ext3)
part 2, hda2, (0,1) - swap (swap)
part 3, hda4 - extended
part 3a, hda5, (0,4) - / (ext3 suse)
part 3b, hda6, (0,5) - / (ext3 yoper)
part 3c, hda7, (0,6) - /home (reiserfs)
part 4 -xosl, hda3, (0,2)

when i try to chainload as you mentioned above (using hd0,5) i get an error "unsupported filetype ext2". if i add a line to suse grub like this:

title Yoper
root (hd0,5)
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-3 root=/dev/hda6
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd-2.6.8.1-3.img

it boots fine for a bit and then kicks out an error re: my /home partition hda7 which is reiserfs...

error message...
/dev/hda6: clean, ...blah blah...
fsck.ext3: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hda7
/dev/hda7: The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem.
.... blah blah...
...and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
.... blah blah...
give root password for maintenance:

my /home directory hda7 is reiserfs, and loads/mounts fine with grub and suse. when i try to boot it with yoper it freaks.

your post helped a lot for me to understand the booting process with grub (the different stages), but i'm not clear yet on the significance of the "kernel vmlinuz" and "initrd". what do they do, and how can i properly reference them without just looking at other grub entries and trying to mimic them.

thx
pres

i just tried logging on as root when i get the reiserfs error, and manually mounting the /home directory:

mount /dev/hda7 -t reiserfs /home

and it MOUNTS!

i can't get kde to load though, i get some DCOM error. if i try to logout of root and try a user account, they system reboots upon root logout (exit).

maybe hda7 is miss-represented somewhere as ext3 instead of reiser? where do i look for that?

woot woot & woot!!!!

got it!

i remember reading lots of post re: /etc/fstab so i thought, "what the heck" and hunted it down in my yoper isntallation and guess what.... yuppers u got it (what prize to we have for the winner?), hda7 /home was trying to mount as ext3 (i told it to leave /home alone during installation since it is a shared directory, and it must have defaulted to ext3). i changed it to "reiserfs" and i KICKS!

now i just gotta get a valid graphics configuration going (sax message is repeating) and i might have my first ever yoper installation running

thx for all the help and suggestions all.

would still like to understand the "kernel" and "initrd" lines if anyone has a couple secs for a quick explanation (the grub manual is not intuitive to me).

many thanks,
pres

woohoo

i'm looking @ a big red round "Yv2" on the installation computer

it rox

The GRUB manual is not intuitive to me either. That is why I took a few minutes give you something to compare to.

As far as the kernel and initrd, I can only help a little. For some reason yet unexplained to me, the promenent linux kernel on many systems is given the name vmlinuz. You certainly don't need to name your kernel that, but it traditionally is.

The stuff that comes after it on the same line is handed to the kernel to deal with. In other words, GRUB doesn't touch them at all. GRUB only tells them to the kernel before giving it control. They are mostly settings for things that the kernel needs to know before the linux system really starts loading. I think most of them are hardware related. The "root" part of it tells the kernel which partition to pick as the root partition, for example. I still don't know or comprehend most of these options.

As for 'initrd', I wish I knew. It is a file that GRUB loads into memory before giving control to the kernel. Why it does that, I can only guess. I think it is a ramdisk image initially used as the root device, containing startup scripts and stuff. I'll know eventually. For now, assume that if you have one, you need it.

Glad you found it, and have fun!

hehe,

thx 4 your help. it should be illegal for someone as ignorant as i to be having this much fun. the thrill when it works, even if you did quite stumble upon the solution makes it all so sweet.

thx again,
pres