I am trying to fix the grub config file so that I can boot another OS on this machine. I need to play with the (1,3) part- but it is a pain to boot the system just to change this one file and then to power down again to test it. Is there not a simple text editor in Grub?
Dotan Cohen http://technology-sleuth.com/long_answer/what_is_hdtv.html
2
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 15:26 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
I am trying to fix the grub config file so that I can boot another OS on this machine. I need to play with the (1,3) part- but it is a pain to boot the system just to change this one file and then to power down again to test it. Is there not a simple text editor in Grub?
Dotan Cohen http://technology-sleuth.com/long_answer/what_is_hdtv.html
2
Certainly you can do command line editing with grub during boot ( the 'e' key ). However, those edits are only in memory and only during that boot. Grub cannot write to a filesystem that is not even mounted yet.
To make changes permanent you need to actually edit the text file grub.conf and save those changes when the system is running.
Also, How are you going to test your saved changes if you do not reboot and let grub read and use the changed configuration?
Jeff Vian wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 15:26 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
I am trying to fix the grub config file so that I can boot another OS on this machine. I need to play with the (1,3) part- but it is a pain to boot the system just to change this one file and then to power down again to test it. Is there not a simple text editor in Grub?
Dotan Cohen http://technology-sleuth.com/long_answer/what_is_hdtv.html
2
Certainly you can do command line editing with grub during boot ( the 'e' key ). However, those edits are only in memory and only during that boot. Grub cannot write to a filesystem that is not even mounted yet.
"mounted" has no meaning to grub, and any event it's able to read it at that time: tab-completion for filenames works.
However, it does not write[1] to those filesystems, and I think that fairly sensible.
To make changes permanent you need to actually edit the text file grub.conf and save those changes when the system is running.
Use the commandline to find what works, write it down if you need and ..
Also, How are you going to test your saved changes if you do not reboot and let grub read and use the changed configuration?
you won't have to make so many corrections that rebooting becomes so frustrating.
[1] grub does write something to disk somewhere, it's able to "remember" what your previous selection was, and it's able to mark a partition active (for the DOS family of operating systems). However, what to write is determined by grub, not a potentially ignorant or malicious user.
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 22:07 +0800, John Summerfied wrote:
Jeff Vian wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 15:26 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
I am trying to fix the grub config file so that I can boot another OS on this machine. I need to play with the (1,3) part- but it is a pain to boot the system just to change this one file and then to power down again to test it. Is there not a simple text editor in Grub?
Dotan Cohen http://technology-sleuth.com/long_answer/what_is_hdtv.html
2
Certainly you can do command line editing with grub during boot ( the 'e' key ). However, those edits are only in memory and only during that boot. Grub cannot write to a filesystem that is not even mounted yet.
"mounted" has no meaning to grub, and any event it's able to read it at that time: tab-completion for filenames works.
However, it does not write[1] to those filesystems, and I think that fairly sensible.
To make changes permanent you need to actually edit the text file grub.conf and save those changes when the system is running.
Use the commandline to find what works, write it down if you need and ..
Also, How are you going to test your saved changes if you do not reboot and let grub read and use the changed configuration?
you won't have to make so many corrections that rebooting becomes so frustrating.
[1] grub does write something to disk somewhere, it's able to "remember" what your previous selection was, and it's able to mark a partition active (for the DOS family of operating systems). However, what to write is determined by grub, not a potentially ignorant or malicious user.
It does not "remember" your previous selection. It does *always* boot the kernel marked as default unless you make some other selection from the menu.
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 11:32 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
It does not "remember" your previous selection. It does *always* boot the kernel marked as default unless you make some other selection from the menu.
It is possible to configure GRUB to work the way you argue against. That can be useful for people with multi-boot systems who want to be able simply reboot the current OS.
Instead of something like "default 0" to set the OS to be booted without interaction, you have a line with "saved" to boot using the last OS, and inside each title section you have a "savedefault" line so the system remembers which one you chose.
e.g. From the GRUB info file:
default saved timeout 10
title GNU/Linux root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 vga=ext initrd /boot/initrd savedefault
title FreeBSD root (hd0,a) kernel /boot/loader savedefault
On Fri, 2006-02-17 at 09:32 +1030, Tim wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 11:32 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
It does not "remember" your previous selection. It does *always* boot the kernel marked as default unless you make some other selection from the menu.
It is possible to configure GRUB to work the way you argue against. That can be useful for people with multi-boot systems who want to be able simply reboot the current OS.
OK, so you *CAN* make it do that. It certainly is not the default behavior and requires modification of every stanza in grub.conf to achieve what you describe as well as changing the default line. That is not easy for most, nor intuitive at all, and most would not consider making those changes without a tutorial or a clearly documented procedure and reason.
Most people I know simply want the system to work without having to get under the hood and adjust the dohickey to fix their thingamajig. Grub documentation is sparse and since I am happy with the system as it is (and I suspect most are), I have not spent hours digging and trying to find out what is possible.
I wonder how many people on this list actually knew that was possible before you posted the procedure here?
Instead of something like "default 0" to set the OS to be booted without interaction, you have a line with "saved" to boot using the last OS, and inside each title section you have a "savedefault" line so the system remembers which one you chose.
e.g. From the GRUB info file:
default saved timeout 10 title GNU/Linux root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 vga=ext initrd /boot/initrd savedefault title FreeBSD root (hd0,a) kernel /boot/loader savedefault
-- Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
Jeff Vian:
It does not "remember" your previous selection. It does *always* boot the kernel marked as default unless you make some other selection from the menu.
Tim:
It is possible to configure GRUB to work the way you argue against. That can be useful for people with multi-boot systems who want to be able simply reboot the current OS.
Jeff Vian:
OK, so you *CAN* make it do that.
Well, you were rather directly, very assertively, and not totally correctly, disputing a prior poster:
John Summerfied
However, it does not write[1] to those filesystems, and I think that fairly sensible.
[1] grub does write something to disk somewhere, it's able to "remember" what your previous selection was, and it's able to mark a partition active (for the DOS family of operating systems).
He correctly said it was *able* to do so, you said it couldn't do so (i.e. it doesn't remember, and it always boots the default kernel).
If you'd said it doesn't normally do that, I'd have agreed with you, but your prior reply was rather misleading. Anybody who might have wanted to do what I'd described, might well have took what you said at face value, and not looked any further to see if it could have been done.
It certainly is not the default behavior and requires modification of every stanza in grub.conf to achieve what you describe as well as changing the default line. That is not easy for most, nor intuitive at all, and most would not consider making those changes without a tutorial or a clearly documented procedure and reason.
It's not difficult to do. And unless you never prune out all your prior kernels (which is bad management), it's not a lot of work. The manual isn't too bad describing this, and I certainly would read a manual for something if I was considering customising my PC to do something. And I do think it *is* intuitive that a reboot actually reboots your PC using the same system that you were already using, in certain circumstances (e.g. multiboot systems, or systems used by other people - where they'd expect a reboot to allow them to carry on doing what they were doing before, and not have to worry about anything special that you might have done before they started using the PC).
I wonder how many people on this list actually knew that was possible before you posted the procedure here?
Not sure you really want an answer to that on a list which may well have a huge number of participants...
On Sun, 2006-02-19 at 16:24 +1030, Tim wrote:
Jeff Vian:
It does not "remember" your previous selection. It does *always* boot the kernel marked as default unless you make some other selection from the menu.
Tim:
It is possible to configure GRUB to work the way you argue against. That can be useful for people with multi-boot systems who want to be able simply reboot the current OS.
Jeff Vian:
OK, so you *CAN* make it do that.
Well, you were rather directly, very assertively, and not totally correctly, disputing a prior poster:
Point taken. Even though the setting to use the "saved" kernel has to be manually configured it does exist. I was basing my statement on what I knew to that point.
John Summerfied
However, it does not write[1] to those filesystems, and I think that fairly sensible.
[1] grub does write something to disk somewhere, it's able to "remember" what your previous selection was, and it's able to mark a partition active (for the DOS family of operating systems).
He correctly said it was *able* to do so, you said it couldn't do so (i.e. it doesn't remember, and it always boots the default kernel).
If you'd said it doesn't normally do that, I'd have agreed with you, but your prior reply was rather misleading. Anybody who might have wanted to do what I'd described, might well have took what you said at face value, and not looked any further to see if it could have been done.
I always appreciate an opportunity to learn, especially when it may aid me in the future. Another case where an absolute statement must be backed by facts (that I was missing).
It certainly is not the default behavior and requires modification of every stanza in grub.conf to achieve what you describe as well as changing the default line. That is not easy for most, nor intuitive at all, and most would not consider making those changes without a tutorial or a clearly documented procedure and reason.
It's not difficult to do. And unless you never prune out all your prior kernels (which is bad management), it's not a lot of work. The manual isn't too bad describing this, and I certainly would read a manual for something if I was considering customising my PC to do something. And I do think it *is* intuitive that a reboot actually reboots your PC using the same system that you were already using, in certain circumstances (e.g. multiboot systems, or systems used by other people - where they'd expect a reboot to allow them to carry on doing what they were doing before, and not have to worry about anything special that you might have done before they started using the PC).
Not at all difficult if you make that change as soon as you install the system. Each kernel update copies the appropriate lines into the stanza for the new kernel so it is painless after the change has been made.
It is intuitive that the boot should do that. The configuration to make it happen is what I said was not.
I wonder how many people on this list actually knew that was possible before you posted the procedure here?
Not sure you really want an answer to that on a list which may well have a huge number of participants...
Probably not :-)
Tim wrote:
It's not difficult to do. And unless you never prune out all your prior kernels (which is bad management), it's not a lot of work. The manual isn't too bad describing this, and I certainly would read a manual for something if I was considering customising my PC to do something.
Er ... where is the grub manual? Do you mean the "man grub" entry? Or what you get if you say "info grub"? The latter is much more informative, but very difficult to navigate through, IMHO.
And I do think it *is* intuitive that a reboot actually reboots your PC using the same system that you were already using,
But it doesn't, does it? Do you mean it does this if you add the command you suggested? Incidentally you gave this in two forms, "default saved" and "savedefault". Will either work? And what precisely will it do?
Grub is a great program, IMHO, but its documentation is abysmal. As for running grub interactively, this is rather like changing a bulb in the dark.
Timothy Murphy wrote:
Or what you get if you say "info grub"? The latter is much more informative, but very difficult to navigate through, IMHO.
pinfo grub?
James.
On Sun, Feb 19, 2006 at 04:49:15PM +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
Tim wrote:
It's not difficult to do. And unless you never prune out all your prior kernels (which is bad management), it's not a lot of work. The manual isn't too bad describing this, and I certainly would read a manual for something if I was considering customising my PC to do something.
Er ... where is the grub manual? Do you mean the "man grub" entry? Or what you get if you say "info grub"? The latter is much more informative, but very difficult to navigate through, IMHO.
There is no grub man page the last time I looked but pinfo grub is much easier to navigate through. ------------------------------------------- Aaron Konstam Computer Science Trinity University telephone: (210)-999-7484
akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
There is no grub man page the last time I looked but
[summer@bilby ~]$ man grub | head GRUB(8) FSF GRUB(8)
NAME grub - the grub shell
SYNOPSIS grub [OPTION]...
On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 06:05:19PM +0800, John Summerfied wrote:
akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
There is no grub man page the last time I looked but
[summer@bilby ~]$ man grub | head GRUB(8) FSF GRUB(8)
NAME grub - the grub shell
SYNOPSIS grub [OPTION]...
It shows I should look more often but man grub is still pretty inadequate. ------------------------------------------- Aaron Konstam Computer Science Trinity University telephone: (210)-999-7484
Tim:
It's not difficult to do. And unless you never prune out all your prior kernels (which is bad management), it's not a lot of work. The manual isn't too bad describing this, and I certainly would read a manual for something if I was considering customising my PC to do something.
Timothy Murphy:
Er ... where is the grub manual? Do you mean the "man grub" entry? Or what you get if you say "info grub"? The latter is much more informative, but very difficult to navigate through, IMHO.
Personally, I find that man pages are quite dire to use, but info files take the cake for being damn awkward (about as bad as using Lynx). But if one actually pays attention while reading the grub man file, this is at the bottom:
SEE ALSO The full documentation for grub is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and grub programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info grub
should give you access to the complete manual.
So, it's not hard to find out about the info version of the manual, and it's not hard to figure out what "the full documentation for..." or the "complete manual" means.
i.e. Probably more than what you're currently reading.
I nearly always check out the "see also" sections of man files, unless I've got the answers I need already. I've also checked out the web page for GRUB.
And I do think it *is* intuitive that a reboot actually reboots your PC using the same system that you were already using,
But it doesn't, does it?
I was countering the comment that *that* sort of thing wasn't intuitive, where I say it is (i.e. reboot "reboots" what you're currently using; as opposed to doing a reboot, and something else boots up).
Do you mean it does this if you add the command you suggested? Incidentally you gave this in two forms, "default saved" and "savedefault". Will either work? And what precisely will it do?
Read the manual, and find out. But briefly, it's done in two parts:
Any item you choose with a "savedefault" command, will save that item as the default for the next bootup, as well as whatever other commands are in that item.
The "default saved" before all the items says what item to use by default. Usually, it's a specific item (e.g. "default 0" runs the first entry, the one at the top of the list). Using "default saved" means to use whichever got saved as default, last time.
Hmm, I wonder what happens the first time around, when you've never booted before and set something as a default? ;-)
Grub is a great program, IMHO, but its documentation is abysmal.
Hmm, not sure if it's much worse than many other things. (Which doesn't mean that it's good.)
I really loathe its manner of starting counting from zero. Sure, it makes sense for 0 to refer to a whole partition, and 1 for the first partition. But 0 for the first drive is nonsensical.
As for running grub interactively, this is rather like changing a bulb in the dark.
I tend to agree. It's not helped by having some light white writing over a light blue background, either.
Greetings Tim,
Tim wrote:
Tim:
< snip >
I really loathe its manner of starting counting from zero. Sure, it makes sense for 0 to refer to a whole partition, and 1 for the first partition. But 0 for the first drive is nonsensical.
Grub starts it's numbering from 0 . Well since computers do start counting from 0 due to their binary logic , i guess that is to be expected . Remember for example that BIOS starts it's counting for hard disks at 0x80 ( 80 hexadecimal ) .
Kind Regards, Kostas
Tim:
I really loathe its manner of starting counting from zero. Sure, it makes sense for 0 to refer to a whole partition, and 1 for the first partition. But 0 for the first drive is nonsensical.
Kostas Sfakiotakis:
Grub starts it's numbering from 0.
I know that, I'm saying it's not user-friendly, nor has it ever been.
Remember when we only had floppy drives? Some computers with two drives had drives "zero" and "one", which is sheer stupidity in human terms. Other more practical systems called them drive "one" and "two".
It causes no end of problems because you HAVE to explain to someone that it starts counting from zero instead of one. On the other hand, you wouldn't have to explain things to people if they counted normally.
On Mon, 2006-02-20 at 18:45, Tim wrote:
Kostas Sfakiotakis:
Grub starts it's numbering from 0.
I know that, I'm saying it's not user-friendly, nor has it ever been.
It's not linux specific. It might make more sense to someone used to the bsd style disk naming scheme.
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 11:15 +1030, Tim wrote:
Tim:
I really loathe its manner of starting counting from zero. Sure, it makes sense for 0 to refer to a whole partition, and 1 for the first partition. But 0 for the first drive is nonsensical.
Kostas Sfakiotakis:
Grub starts it's numbering from 0.
I know that, I'm saying it's not user-friendly, nor has it ever been.
Remember when we only had floppy drives? Some computers with two drives had drives "zero" and "one", which is sheer stupidity in human terms. Other more practical systems called them drive "one" and "two".
I understand your frustration. However, since computers always start counting with 0 it was natural for programming languages to do the same. This is just one example of how that shows to the users.
Although it adds extra instructions in the program (and the extra time penalty in execution of those instructions) it is possible to make what the user sees the 'normal' counting process of 1,2,..... as most of us think of it.
It causes no end of problems because you HAVE to explain to someone that it starts counting from zero instead of one. On the other hand, you wouldn't have to explain things to people if they counted normally.
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 16:58 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
However, since computers always start counting with 0 it was natural for programming languages to do the same. This is just one example of how that shows to the users.
More like programmers never really put any good thought into what they were doing. The number of times I recall having to fix up someone's FOR A = 0 TO 10 sort of things so they'd count the right number of times...
How many fingers am I holding up...?
<<How many fingers am I holding up...?>>
10 fingers, but the last one you put up was digit 9 and the first was digit 0.
10 is is to digits, 0 with a one in the power of ten place holder.
John
-- Registered Linux User 263680, get counted at http://counter.li.org
Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 16:58 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
However, since computers always start counting with 0 it was natural for programming languages to do the same. This is just one example of how that shows to the users.
More like programmers never really put any good thought into what they were doing. The number of times I recall having to fix up someone's FOR A = 0 TO 10 sort of things so they'd count the right number of times...
How many fingers am I holding up...?
Eight, and two thumbs. But there are only nine gaps between them...
Fence post error!
Mike
On Wednesday 22 February 2006 06:06, Mike McCarty wrote:
Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 16:58 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
However, since computers always start counting with 0 it was natural for programming languages to do the same. This is just one example of how that shows to the users.
More like programmers never really put any good thought into what they were doing. The number of times I recall having to fix up someone's FOR A = 0 TO 10 sort of things so they'd count the right number of times...
How many fingers am I holding up...?
Eight, and two thumbs. But there are only nine gaps between them...
Fence post error!
Mike
OUCH .. Fence posts and fingers/thumbs should never be mentioned in the same sentence!
On 2/22/06, Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 16:58 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
However, since computers always start counting with 0 it was natural for programming languages to do the same. This is just one example of how that shows to the users.
More like programmers never really put any good thought into what they were doing. The number of times I recall having to fix up someone's FOR A = 0 TO 10 sort of things so they'd count the right number of times...
How many fingers am I holding up...?
Eight, and two thumbs. But there are only nine gaps between them...
Fence post error!
Mike
Are thumbs not fingers? I have a broken one now- so would it be inacurate to say that I had broken a finger?
By the way, if you hold one hand in front of the other, you can hold up ten fingers with only eight gaps between them!
Dotan Cohen http://technology-sleuth.com/long_answer/why_are_internet_greeting_cards_dan...
Dotan Cohen wrote:
On 2/22/06, Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 16:58 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
However, since computers always start counting with 0 it was natural for programming languages to do the same. This is just one example of how that shows to the users.
More like programmers never really put any good thought into what they were doing. The number of times I recall having to fix up someone's FOR A = 0 TO 10 sort of things so they'd count the right number of times...
How many fingers am I holding up...?
Eight, and two thumbs. But there are only nine gaps between them...
Fence post error!
Mike
Are thumbs not fingers? I have a broken one now- so would it be inacurate to say that I had broken a finger?
Thumbs are digits, but they are not fingers. Toes are also digits. But if you ask someone "How many fingers do you have?", the answer is ten. In aggregate, thumbs are fingers, but individually, they are not. Some aspects of English are pretty confusing. Like to discuss uniplurals? Or words which have two different forms for the plural, but with different meanings? How about verbs which have different conjugations depending on what the object of the action is? How about words which are their own antonyms? (That's one of my favorite categories.)
By the way, if you hold one hand in front of the other, you can hold up ten fingers with only eight gaps between them!
Heck, I can hold up my fingers with *no* gaps between them! Beat that!
Mike
On 2/23/06, Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Thumbs are digits, but they are not fingers. Toes are also digits. But if you ask someone "How many fingers do you have?", the answer is ten. In aggregate, thumbs are fingers, but individually, they are not. Some aspects of English are pretty confusing. Like to discuss uniplurals? Or words which have two different forms for the plural, but with different meanings? How about verbs which have different conjugations depending on what the object of the action is? How about words which are their own antonyms? (That's one of my favorite categories.)
By the way, if you hold one hand in front of the other, you can hold up ten fingers with only eight gaps between them!
Heck, I can hold up my fingers with *no* gaps between them! Beat that!
Mike
I doubt that you can do it with no gaps. I though about it, but there will be microscopic gaps that you could not avoid. I figured that in a discussion with Mike McCarty, I had better be as accurate as possible.
So, the idea that the thumb is not a finger is specific to the English language. Indeed, in Hebrew it is a finger- as are the toes! So while English speakers have 8 fingers, Hebrew speakers have 20.
How about words which are their own antonyms?
I'd love to see some examples. I love word games- and this may be valuable. In an attempt to keep this On Topic, are there any computer (or linux) related ones?
Dotan
Dotan Cohen wrote:
On 2/23/06, Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Thumbs are digits, but they are not fingers. Toes are also digits. But if you ask someone "How many fingers do you have?", the answer is ten. In aggregate, thumbs are fingers, but individually, they are not. Some aspects of English are pretty confusing. Like to discuss uniplurals? Or words which have two different forms for the plural, but with different meanings? How about verbs which have different conjugations depending on what the object of the action is? How about words which are their own antonyms? (That's one of my favorite categories.)
By the way, if you hold one hand in front of the other, you can hold up ten fingers with only eight gaps between them!
Heck, I can hold up my fingers with *no* gaps between them! Beat that!
Mike
I doubt that you can do it with no gaps. I though about it, but there will be microscopic gaps that you could not avoid. I figured that in a discussion with Mike McCarty, I had better be as accurate as possible.
So, the idea that the thumb is not a finger is specific to the English language. Indeed, in Hebrew it is a finger- as are the toes! So while English speakers have 8 fingers, Hebrew speakers have 20.
How about words which are their own antonyms?
I'd love to see some examples. I love word games- and this may be valuable. In an attempt to keep this On Topic, are there any computer (or linux) related ones?
Pseudo-on-topic "boot" is almost its own antonym. As in "boot that computer" can mean to start it up, or throw it away.
Mike
On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 22:52 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
On 2/23/06, Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
[snip]
So, the idea that the thumb is not a finger is specific to the English language. Indeed, in Hebrew it is a finger- as are the toes! So while English speakers have 8 fingers, Hebrew speakers have 20.
Now I'm an American and I have 10 fingers, two of which are thumbs. Sorry, I just couldn't resist! :-)
[snip]
Bob Taylor wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 22:52 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
On 2/23/06, Mike McCarty mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net wrote:
[snip]
So, the idea that the thumb is not a finger is specific to the English language. Indeed, in Hebrew it is a finger- as are the toes! So while English speakers have 8 fingers, Hebrew speakers have 20.
Now I'm an American and I have 10 fingers, two of which are thumbs. Sorry, I just couldn't resist! :-)
[snip]
Actually, I'm *all* thumbs!
Mike
Timothy Murphy wrote:
Tim wrote:
It's not difficult to do. And unless you never prune out all your prior kernels (which is bad management), it's not a lot of work. The manual isn't too bad describing this, and I certainly would read a manual for something if I was considering customising my PC to do something.
Er ... where is the grub manual? Do you mean the "man grub" entry? Or what you get if you say "info grub"? The latter is much more informative, but very difficult to navigate through, IMHO.
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/
Not sure what led me there the first time, perhaps the README file in /usr/share/doc/grub* . Just now, I got there by Googling for "grub manual" (including the quotes).
On 2/16/06, Jeff Vian jvian10@charter.net wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 22:07 +0800, John Summerfied wrote:
It does not "remember" your previous selection. It does *always* boot the kernel marked as default unless you make some other selection from the menu.
Can I only boot from options in the menu? If I _know_ that I want to boot from hdb8 or from (1,8) can I do it from grub, or must I first boot the system, then edit the config file, then restart, to boot from my desired partion?
Dotan Cohen http://technology-sleuth.com/question/how_can_i_be_safe_online.html
234
On Fri, 2006-02-17 at 18:48 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
Can I only boot from options in the menu?
No, you can boot from temporary changes held in memory.
If I _know_ that I want to boot from hdb8 or from (1,8) can I do it from grub
Yes you can. Just go into the edit mode for the menu, make changes as necessary to the options GRUB will use to boot with, and boot. What you've just changed only applies for the current session, you haven't changed what's in the GRUB configuration file. If you want to make your changes permanent, you will have to edit the file directly. Do that after you've booted up successfully.
Suggestion: Make your modifications as a new item in the GRUB menus, keeping what's already there, until you're sure that everything is working fine.
On 2/17/06, Tim ignored_mailbox@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Yes you can. Just go into the edit mode for the menu, make changes as necessary to the options GRUB will use to boot with, and boot.
Er, how? I could not find any text editors in the options.
Suggestion: Make your modifications as a new item in the GRUB menus, keeping what's already there, until you're sure that everything is working fine.
Good idea. I'll do that. In any case the file is backed up, and I do have slax handy!
Dotan Cohen http://IE-Only.com
Tim:
Yes you can. Just go into the edit mode for the menu, make changes as necessary to the options GRUB will use to boot with, and boot.
Dotan Cohen:
Er, how? I could not find any text editors in the options.
Press the e key. I though there were even prompts for that, but I'm not going to reboot, now, to look at the GRUB screens.
The manuals, plus the GRUB website, should have all the gory details about doing this sort of thing.
Greetings Dotan ,
Dotan Cohen wrote:
On 2/16/06, Jeff Vian jvian10@charter.net wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 22:07 +0800, John Summerfied wrote:
It does not "remember" your previous selection. It does *always* boot the kernel marked as default unless you make some other selection from the menu.
Can I only boot from options in the menu? If I _know_ that I want to boot from hdb8 or from (1,8)
Watch out here !! This is partially wrong counting . Yes indeed hdb is the Primary Slave ( the Second IDE Hard Disk of the system ) But 8 is the seventh partition of hdb so in order to boot from hdb8 you would have to ask grub to boot from (1,7 ) . By all means you can do that while the computer boots , at the boot menu press "e" make the change and go ahead .....
Kind Regards, Kostas
On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 02:02 +0200, Kostas Sfakiotakis wrote:
Greetings Dotan ,
Dotan Cohen wrote:
On 2/16/06, Jeff Vian jvian10@charter.net wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 22:07 +0800, John Summerfied wrote:
It does not "remember" your previous selection. It does *always* boot the kernel marked as default unless you make some other selection from the menu.
Can I only boot from options in the menu? If I _know_ that I want to boot from hdb8 or from (1,8)
Watch out here !! This is partially wrong counting . Yes indeed hdb is the Primary Slave ( the Second IDE Hard Disk of the system ) But 8 is the seventh partition of hdb so in order to boot from hdb8 you would have to ask grub to boot from (1,7 ) .
Confusion abounds with this. hdb8 is indeed the 8th partition. Grub would access it at (hd1,7) Remember, the partiton table starts counting with 1, Grub starts counting with 0. What grub uses is the _offset_ value from the first partition, while the partition table uses the numerical value.
By all means you can do that while the computer boots , at the boot menu press "e" make the change and go ahead .....
Kind Regards, Kostas
On 2/21/06, Kostas Sfakiotakis kostassf@cha.forthnet.gr wrote:
Greetings Dotan ,
Dotan Cohen wrote:
On 2/16/06, Jeff Vian jvian10@charter.net wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 22:07 +0800, John Summerfied wrote:
It does not "remember" your previous selection. It does *always* boot the kernel marked as default unless you make some other selection from the menu.
Can I only boot from options in the menu? If I _know_ that I want to boot from hdb8 or from (1,8)
Watch out here !! This is partially wrong counting . Yes indeed hdb is the Primary Slave ( the Second IDE Hard Disk of the system ) But 8 is the seventh partition of hdb so in order to boot from hdb8 you would have to ask grub to boot from (1,7 ) . By all means you can do that while the computer boots , at the boot menu press "e" make the change and go ahead .....
Kind Regards, Kostas
Thanks you Kostas. You provided the most useful information here: what the press and how to access the partition that I want. True, I did figure it out in playing with the system in the last few days, but your complete answer is appreciated nonetheless.
Dotan Cohen http://technology-sleuth.com/question/how_can_i_be_safe_online.html
On 2/16/06, Jeff Vian jvian10@charter.net wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 15:26 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
I am trying to fix the grub config file so that I can boot another OS on this machine. I need to play with the (1,3) part- but it is a pain to boot the system just to change this one file and then to power down again to test it. Is there not a simple text editor in Grub?
Dotan Cohen http://technology-sleuth.com/long_answer/what_is_hdtv.html
2
Certainly you can do command line editing with grub during boot ( the 'e' key ). However, those edits are only in memory and only during that boot. Grub cannot write to a filesystem that is not even mounted yet.
To make changes permanent you need to actually edit the text file grub.conf and save those changes when the system is running.
Also, How are you going to test your saved changes if you do not reboot and let grub read and use the changed configuration?
In that case, how can I tell it to boot from hdb8, and if that doesn't work to boot form hdb7, etc... In grub-speak that's (1,8) , (1,7) , etc...
Dotan Cohen http://technology-sleuth.com/long_answer/what_is_a_cellphone.html