Grub Installation Mini HowTo

I wrote a guide called the "Hard Disk Upgrade Mini How-To". Part of this document explains how to install Lilo.

Many users have asked for similar information on installing Grub, so I wrote it.

This is a first version. Comments are welcome.

This is posted in comp.os.linux.setup and comp.os.linux.misc; follow-ups are set comp.os.linux.setup.

- - - Grub Installation Mini How-To

version 0.1 11 December 2005

This explains how to install and configure the Grub boot loader. It was tested with Fedora 4 and with Debian 3.0.

Grub notation =============

Grub has its own notation to refer to hard disks and parbreastions. These are numbered from 0, not from 1. Also, there are parentheses around the parameters.

Examples:

Grub notation traditional notation meaning

(fd0) dev-fd0 first floppy drive (hd0) dev-hda first hard disk (hd1) dev-hdb second hard disk (hd0,0) dev-hda1 first parbreastion on first hisk disk (hd1,3) dev-hdb4 fourth parbreastion on second hard disk

Installing Grub ===============

To install the grub loader ondev-hda, become root using the command "su -", then do the following command:

grub-installdev-hda

After doing this, a new directory calledboot-grub will be created. This directory will contain several files, including the following:

boot-grub-stage1boot-grub-stage2boot-grub-e2fsstage15

There will also be other files ending with "stage15"; these are to boot other operaring systems.

If the configuration file will be in the first parbreastion of the first hard disk (-dev-hda1), then do:

root (hd0,0)

If the configuration file will be ondev-hda2, then do "root (hd0,1)", and so on.

Grub will answer: "Filesystem type is ext2fs, parbreastion type 0x83", for example.

Then, do "setup (hd0)" to install Grub on first disk drive, Grub provides some information, ending with this if all went well:

Running "installboot-grub-stage1 ... more output ... succeeded Done

Hint: the line before the last one will say either "-boot-grub-grub.conf" or "-boot-grub-menu.lst". This indicates the name of the configuration file for your version of Grub. For more information, see "Configuration", below.

To exit the installation, do "quit".

Configuration =============

After installing Grub, you must make a configuration file. The configuration file is located atboot-grub-grub.conf.

With older versions of Grub, the configuration file was located atboot-grub-menu.lst. It's suggested that you make a link from the old name to the new name:

ln -sboot-grub-grub.confboot-grub-menu.lst

In some distributions, this link already exists.

Here's an example of a configuration file. Linux is ondev-hda1 and will be loaded by default. A DOS or Windows parbreastion is ondev-hda2 and can be loaded instead by choosing it from the Grub menu at boot-up.

default=0 # By default, boot the first entry that follows. # The entries are numbered starting with 0, not with 1. timeout=10 # Timeout before booting the default, in seconds. splashimage=(hd0,0)-boot-grub-splash.xpm.gz # Some distributions provide a nice background image. This is "a # gzipped xpm which is 640x480 with a 14 color palette", according to the # "info" for Grub. This is entirely optional.

# Example to boot Linux.

breastle Fedora4 # Name of Linux parbreastion. root (hd0,0) # Location of parbreastion. kernelboot-vmlinuz-2.6.14 ro root=-dev-hda1 # Location of kernel, then "ro", then parbreastion containing kernel # Using traditional name. # Add kernel parameters, if any, for example "vga=ext". initrdboot-initrd-2.6.14.img # Location of initrd (initialized RAM disk), if any.

# Example to boot DOS or Windows.

breastle MS-DOS # Name of DOS or Windows parbreastion. rootnoverify (hd0,1) # Specify location of parbreastion. chainloader +1 # Add chainloader command.

Changing the configuration ==========================

With LILO, it was necessary to runsbin-lilo when the configuration file was changed. This is not necessary with Grub: simply change the configuration file, without rerunning or reinstalling Grub.

It is only necessary to rerun the "grub" command if the location of the configuration file is changed.

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