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

[blind Pete]

Wolfgang Bornath wrote:

> 2012/5/3 blind Pete <0123peter-
Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>:
>>
>>> 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.
> 
> No, I meant: at which moment in the install process and for which
> occasion?

During a standard install at the start of the configuration section 
there is a point where there is a message about 
"PREPARING BOOTLOADER" please be patient, searching for other 
systems, this may take a while, or somthing similar.  Then the 
Summary pops up.  

It could be done before that, immediately after partitioning.  
Perhaps if the advanced button were pressed?  

>>> 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.
> 
> But that makes only sense for the bootloader which is in the MBR. So
> you do it once and never again.
> Whenever you add a distribution, you put the bootloader of this new
> one in its root partition. Then you boot the distribution which has
> its bootloader in the MBR and add the relevant 3 lines into its
> menu.lst. You can't use drakboot for that.

It would make most sense to start with a bootloader in the MBR 
then go to a root partition bootloader and finaly an operating Lystem, 
but LiLo and GRUB let you go "up" a level back to the MBR's 
bootloader, or "sideways".  e.g. From /dev/sda to /dev/sda12 
to /dev/sda1 to /dev/sda to /dev/sda2 to an OS.  It can even 
loop to itself, pointless but it works.  

If you want to do things like that, then you need to be 
very careful about how you label things.  

Do different things get listed in Mageia's bootloader config 
depending on whether it is written to the MBR or the root 
partition?  Find everything if going to MBR, only list Mageia 
stuff (and "back") if going to the root partition?  

BTW I was assuming that every distribution has its own tools.  
If your "master" installation is Mageia (or even if it is not) 
you can use drakboot to add chainloader commands to Mageia's 
GRUB or LiLo configuration.  

-- 
blind Pete
Sig goes here...