[Mageia-dev] Grub2 vs. Grub Legacy in M3

[Barry Jackson]

On 28/01/13 20:01, Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2013-01-28 19:27 (GMT) Barry Jackson composed:
>
>>>> http://svnweb.mageia.org/packages/cauldron/grub2/current/SOURCES/README.Mageia?view=markup
>>>>
>> Chainloading into grub2 is not the best way, due to the block lists
>> problem people keep mentioning and complaining about.
>> Grub2 can install it's kernel in the root filesystem which can be booted
>> directly. Installing the grub2 package, whether during install or later
>> automatically builds /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img and also creates a
>> grub.cfg ready for use.
>> Chanloading is un-necessary since an entry in menu.lst on a legacy
>> system will boot a grub2 Mageia system using:
>
>>        title Mageia via GRUB 2
>>     root (hdx,y)
>>        kernel /boot/grub2/i386-pc/core.img
>
>> ...as explained in the above README.Mageia
>
>> I use a small grub2 partition sda1 as "master".
>> To boot into Mageia grub2 systems I use the grub2 multiboot command:
>
>>     menuentry 'Mageia-3 multi sda6' {
>>     search --no-floppy --label --set=root mageia-3
>>     multiboot /boot/grub2/i386-pc/core.img
>>     }
>
>> So IMO all of the FUD about "you can't install grub2 to the PBR" is
>> pointless since it's just not necessary.
>
> Maybe not all is FUD. I don't see anything in that README that describes
> a procedure for an OS/2 or eCS multibooter whose primary bootloader
> and/or bootloader of choice is IBM Boot Manager, which is prerequisite
> to booting OS/2 when it is installed to a logical partition (the only
> place I've ever installed it in the past decade). It can't be told to
> load a particular file on a partition, only its PBR via the simple
> process of selecting a partition in its setup utility for inclusion in
> its boot menu. It works (in effect, chainloads) fine for partitions on
> which Grub Legacy has been configured with the Grub Legacy setup
> command. The only options I see for such users is selecting a partition
> with Grub Legacy configured with menu.lst stanza(s) that include
> core.img, or configuring IBM BM as a secondary bootloader to a primary
> bootloader that is not installed on the MBR.

Maybe.
I have no OS/2 systems to test with.
I think grub2 can be forced to write to the PBR (but I can't find it 
documented just now).
Maybe you could investigate and test this and suggest an edit to the 
README ?