Grub on floppy

[Phil Schaffner]

On Sun, 2005-05-22 at 17:11 -0400, Bill Case wrote:
> Thank you Phil, I really appreciate the help. 

Going back on the list for the benefit of future searchers [and forgoing
the usually-preferred trimming of the message to provide context]...

> 
> On Sun, 2005-22-05 at 08:31 -0400, Phil Schaffner wrote:
> > On Fri, 2005-05-20 at 09:49 -0400, Bill Case wrote:
> > > Hi;
> > > 
> > > I have been playing with this for three or four days and still haven't
> > > got it right.  Any help would be appreciated.
> > > 
> 
> > Have done this for my wife and kids for some years now.  [Fortunately,
> > they have all pretty well outgrown the need for the boot floppy, and all
> > use both OSs.  Still haven't gotten to the state where I can blow away
> > the Evil Empire OS due to games and one or two apps the wife won't give
> > up.]  I use the script below (as root) and edit the grub.conf file on
> > the floppy to change the default stanza to boot.  Your case may be a bit
> > harder as you don't seem to have a dual-boot grub setup to start from,
> > as the script expects.  Would need much more detail on the system to
> > help create the correct grub.conf stanza[s].  Hope studying the script
> > will give a clue or two.
> > 
> > > Will I still want or
> > > need /root?
> > 
> > Don't quite understand the question, but don't think you can live
> > without /root which is root's home directory.
> > 
> 
> Sorry Phil -- so stupid -- I meant /boot.  I have a boot partition on
> both my machine and hers on which I have installed grub.  On my own
> machine my boot loader is Boot Magic which I use to call /boot/grub.
> I meant to ask, how do I set up the floppy to call her /boot/grub, or
> can I put grub on the floppy and boot from there?, or is there a better
> way?  Will I still need her /boot/grub partition? 

Yes.  Not familiar with Ubuntu, but you will still need to get to the
the files that live in /boot on Fedora, whether in a directory or a
partition.  The boot floppy usually does not have room to hold a kernel
and initrd with the size of today's Linux.

> 
> I tried using a rescue disk and wasn't very successful. It seemed far to
> complicated to use each time for a simple 'floppy key'. 
> 
> > > Is there a way that I can get to the Linux on her system
> > > while I am on my own Fedora downstairs?
> > 
> > Yes - ssh will get you there - assuming it is booted under Linux, and
> > the machines are networked, wired or wireless.  [Don't really think you
> > want to get into Cygwin with the sensitivity to messing up the spouse's
> > system, so won't go there.]
> 
> To further clarify, networking is not my strong point -- never needed it
> before; but this 'new' house is wired and therefore I have managed to
> share printers.
> 
> Her machine is always on in XP. I was wondering if there was some way,
> late at night, without physically going upstairs and rebooting into
> Linux, I could magically use her machine remotely.

No way I know of, except rebooting into Linux (or Cygwin - *nix-like
commands/environment for Windows).

> (That ended up being a scary paragraph, although it started innocently
> enough.)  
> 
> 
> > 
> > > Are any of you married?  Can I really get into big trouble doing this?
> > 
> > Yup.
> 
> Still Yup?

Given your earlier description, experience with my wife, and tales from
other Linux users with Windows-wives of my acquaintance, YES - you can
still get into big trouble!  :-)  Hopefully not too much.

> 
> > Good luck,
> > Phil
> > 
> > ------------------------ Cut Here -----------------------
> I liked your script.  Is it necessary to copy grub each time and why do
> you have to re-mkdir?

Assumes a new GRUB floppy image is being created each time.

> 
> Regards Bill

You could run the script on your Fedora system, then mount the floppy
(as /media/floppy) and edit /media/floppy/grub/grub.conf to change
things to match the Ubuntu system on your wife's box; however, would
still need details such as what lives on what partition to advise
further.

Regards,
Phil