Re: [PLUG] avoiding grub problems

["David A. Harding" <dave@dtrt.org>]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 03:01:04PM -0400, Art Alexion wrote:
> My home computer has 32-bit kubuntu 8.04 installed on a SATA drive.
> [...] I want to install 64-bit Ubuntu Studio 9.04 [...]. How do I
> [ensure] that [I can] boot either drive/distro?

Installing Grub again during the normal course of the Ubuntu Studio
installation will almost certainly work just fine.  If you choose this
option, the Grub configuration files will be stored on Ubuntu Studio, so
you cannot remove that distribution or its hard drive without also
making Kubuntu unbootable.

If you're paranoid or want to keep the Grub configuration files on
Kubuntu, 

    1. decline the installation option that says its going to install a
       bootloader, 
    2. accept the error message it gives you, 
    3. finish the install, 
    4. reboot into Kubuntu, 
    5. edit /boot/grub/menu.lst, 
    6. and run the following command as root: 

	update-grub

    7. Reboot and Ubuntu Studio should be listed along with Kubuntu

I can't tell you what to put in menu.lst because it depends on the
filename of the Ubuntu Studio kernel and initrd and your drive layout.
You should find the comments and examples in the file self-explanatory,
and if you don't, there are many tutorials on the web. Don't worry, as
long as you don't change anything between the following lines in
menu.lst, your system will continue to boot Kubuntu:

    ### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
    ### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

A third option, which I usually use, but which requires some expert
knowledge of Grub and Debian-style operating systems, would be to

    1. decline installing a bootloader, 
    2. finish the install, 
    3. use Grub to manually boot Ubuntu Studio, 
    4. install Grub in the operating system -- but not in the master
       boot record,
    5. mount Kubuntu's /boot directory, whichever partition it may be on,
    6. copy the non-comment contents of Studio's menu.lst into
       Kubuntu's menu.lst with the following command:

	sed 's/#.*//; /^$/d; s/^title/\n&/' /boot/grub/menu.lst >> /mnt/grub/menu.lst

    7. Reboot and Ubuntu Studio should be listed along with Kubuntu

Note: all of the instructions above apply to Grub version 1, also known
      as grub-legacy. I regret to confess that I'm still not very
      familiar with Grub version 2.

Good luck,

-Dave
-- 
David A. Harding	    Website:  http://dtrt.org/
1 (609) 997-0765	      Email:  dave@dtrt.org
			Jabber/XMPP:  dharding@jabber.org
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