[Mageia-discuss] can bootable partitions be detected during installation?

blind Pete 0123peter at gmail.com
Thu May 3 16:34:55 CEST 2012


Wolfgang Bornath wrote:

> 2012/5/2 blind Pete <0123peter-
Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>:

This is about a month too late for M2, maybe for M3... 

>>> Have I missed an installation option?  Should this be a feature
>>> request - or a bug report?  M2b3 "lost" my Ubuntu installation.
>>> It was a quick and easy thing for me to recover from, but it could
>>> torment a newbie.
>>
>> I think a bug report about not finding Ubuntu.
> 
> No bug report necessary because the reasons (grub / grub2) are known
> and will not be fixed.

I have found the errata, 
<https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_2_Errata>.  
It says that the steps that used to work, 
<http://docteam.mageia.nl/installer/content/setupBootloaderExpert.html> 
might not work any more.  

As far as I can see there are many possible fixes.  Maybe there 
are some disk mapping problems that I don't know about. 
Here is one fix:  

1. Rememeber which installation has "control" of the mbr.  
(If you can't remember - reinstall a boot loader and 
this time pay attention to which installation is running 
when you do it.)  

2. Boot each of the installations, except for the one that 
has "control" of the mbr, and install a boot loader to its 
root partition.  

3. Boot the installation that has "control" of the mbr and 
install install a boot loader to its root partition.  

4a. If the code below has made its way to the Mageia installer, 
install Mageia and put the boot loader on the mbr (the default).  
You are finished.  

4b. If the Mageia installer is unchanged, install Mageia and 
put the boot loader on the mbr (the default).  Use drakboot 
to *add* an entry for each of the other installations.  
(LiLo, GRUB and GRUB2 all count as "Other OS", not "Linux".)  
You are finished.  

>> blkid  /dev/sdaN -o export | grep LABEL
>> if [ 0 == $? ]
>> then
>> title $(blkid  /dev/sdaN -o value | sed s/\ .*//)
>> else
>> title /dev/sdaN
>> root (sd0,N-1)
>> chainloader +

TYPO: that should be "+1" not "+".  

> Nice. 
Thanks.  

> But at which moment/occasion would you need that? 
When do you use the installer?  
Incompetent user: every month.  
Tester: every week.  
Mageia user: every nine months.  

> Only once when
> you install the distribution which you think will stay the longest and
> whos bootloader will go into MBR. After that you don't need it any
> more because you will have to add new distributions manually to the
> list.
You can use drakboot as it is now to add "things to be chainloaded" 
to the list.  

-- 
blind Pete
Sig goes here...  



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