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Stupid question

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  Stupid question Hans <hans.ullrich@loop.de> - 2022-02-12 10:10 +0100
    Re: Stupid question harryweaver@tutanota.com - 2022-02-12 11:40 +0100
    Re: Stupid question rhkramer@gmail.com - 2022-02-12 15:10 +0100
      Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question) rhkramer@gmail.com - 2022-02-14 16:10 +0100
        Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question) Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> - 2022-02-14 16:20 +0100
          Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question) David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-15 00:30 +0100
            Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question) David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2022-02-15 02:30 +0100
              Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question) Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2022-02-15 12:40 +0100
            Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question) Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2022-02-15 19:30 +0100
              Re: Misremembered John Hasler <john@sugarbit.com> - 2022-02-15 19:50 +0100
                Re: Misremembered Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2022-02-15 20:20 +0100
                  Re: Misremembered John Hasler <john@sugarbit.com> - 2022-02-15 21:50 +0100
                    Re: Misremembered Emanuel Berg <moasenwood@zoho.eu> - 2022-02-16 00:10 +0100
                    Re: Misremembered Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2022-02-16 00:10 +0100
                      Re: Misremembered gene heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2022-02-16 00:50 +0100
                        Re: Misremembered "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2022-02-16 10:50 +0100
                          Re: Misremembered Cindy Sue Causey <butterflybytes@gmail.com> - 2022-02-16 11:40 +0100
              Re: Misremembered Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2022-02-15 20:40 +0100
              Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question) David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-16 21:40 +0100
    Re: Stupid question David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2022-02-12 19:30 +0100
    Re: Stupid question Chuck Zmudzinski <brchuckz@netscape.net> - 2022-02-13 08:50 +0100
      Re: Stupid question Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2022-02-13 17:30 +0100
        Re: Stupid question "Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net> - 2022-02-13 18:30 +0100
        Re: Stupid question Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2022-02-14 22:00 +0100
          Re: Stupid question David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2022-02-15 02:10 +0100
            Re: Stupid question Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2022-02-15 19:40 +0100
        Re: Booting with Grub, was Re: Stupid question David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-15 00:20 +0100
    Re: dual booting, was Re: Stupid question David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-13 18:10 +0100
      Re: dual booting, was Re: Stupid question Hans <hans.ullrich@loop.de> - 2022-02-13 19:00 +0100
        Re: dual booting, was Re: Stupid question David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-15 17:20 +0100
      Re: dual booting, was Re: Stupid question Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2022-02-13 19:30 +0100
        Re: dual booting, was Re: Stupid question David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> - 2022-02-14 00:20 +0100
          Re: dual booting, was Re: Stupid question David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-15 17:20 +0100
        Re: dual booting, was Re: Stupid question David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2022-02-15 17:20 +0100

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#245272 — Stupid question

Dear list, 

I am thinking of a solution of a problem. But I have an understanding problem, 
maybe you can give some background knowledge.

The problem: I have one harddrive, there are two linuces installed.

The partitions are as followed:

kali-linux: 1st primary -> /boot
                 2nd > /


debian    3rd primary -> /boot
               4th logical > /
	             > swap
                                > /home (encrypted)
                                > /usr (encrypted)
                                > /var (encrypted)


This is the structure, and as said before, only ONE drive.

Now my question: Is it possible to configure grub that way, that I can choose 
either kali or debian to boot?

What I might to know, please correct me:
Both are running different kernels. As far as I understood grub, I can set the 
root partition ( / ) with the UUID. This is an entry in grub.cfg and maybe in 
/etc/default/grub. 

But how can I tell grub, to use the kernel of the second /boot? 

I dunno, if it is possible at all, to get a dual boot, the way I want it. With 
a combination of Windows + Linux on one harddrive this is working, however, 
just because grub does not touch the windows bootloader (as fas as I know), 
and what of course is also working, if you got two harddrives, each with 
different linux. They all can be booted from one grub installation, of course.

Maybe I could find a solution, if I would have fully understood how grub is 
working, and what it is doing.

Any hints are welcome, and if this does never work at all, please drop me a 
line.

Best regards

Hans

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#245276

12 Feb 2022, 19:04 by hans.ullrich@loop.de:

> Dear list, 
>
> I am thinking of a solution of a problem. But I have an understanding problem, 
> maybe you can give some background knowledge.
>
> The problem: I have one harddrive, there are two linuces installed.
>
> The partitions are as followed:
>
> kali-linux: 1st primary -> /boot
>  2nd > /
>
>
> debian    3rd primary -> /boot
>  4th logical > /
>  > swap
>  > /home (encrypted)
>  > /usr (encrypted)
>  > /var (encrypted)
>
>
> This is the structure, and as said before, only ONE drive.
>
> Now my question: Is it possible to configure grub that way, that I can choose 
> either kali or debian to boot?
>
> What I might to know, please correct me:
> Both are running different kernels. As far as I understood grub, I can set the 
> root partition ( / ) with the UUID. This is an entry in grub.cfg and maybe in 
> /etc/default/grub. 
>
> But how can I tell grub, to use the kernel of the second /boot? 
>
> I dunno, if it is possible at all, to get a dual boot, the way I want it. With 
> a combination of Windows + Linux on one harddrive this is working, however, 
> just because grub does not touch the windows bootloader (as fas as I know), 
> and what of course is also working, if you got two harddrives, each with 
> different linux. They all can be booted from one grub installation, of course.
>
> Maybe I could find a solution, if I would have fully understood how grub is 
> working, and what it is doing.
>
> Any hints are welcome, and if this does never work at all, please drop me a 
> line.
>


This will work without any problems, despite what I see as unusual partitioning.
You would have no need to configure Grub, but you would need to re-enable OS-prober, which would do it for you.
Cheers!

Harry

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#245283

On Saturday, February 12, 2022 04:04:43 AM Hans wrote:
> But how can I tell grub, to use the kernel of the second /boot?
> 
> I dunno, if it is possible at all, to get a dual boot, the way I want it.
> With a combination of Windows + Linux on one harddrive this is working,
> however, just because grub does not touch the windows bootloader (as fas
> as I know), and what of course is also working, if you got two harddrives,
> each with different linux. They all can be booted from one grub
> installation, of course.
> 
> Maybe I could find a solution, if I would have fully understood how grub is
> working, and what it is doing.
> 
> Any hints are welcome, and if this does never work at all, please drop me a
> line.

The way I understand it (but I may be misremembering), grub temporaily boots 
into a, well I'll say restricted Linux kernel and OS which is used by grub 
until it boots up the main system.  The kernel used in grub may not (probably 
doesn't match the kernel used after grub brings up the main system, and it wil 
bring up the appropriate kernel for that main system (the one you choose).

Think about grub bringing up a Windows system -- grub doesn't use a Windows 
kernel in that case but uses that restricted (mcow) Linux kernel to bring up 
Windows, but Windows doesn't use a Linux kernel once it is up and running.

Further, iirc, the Linux kernel in Grub (I guess I should write it GRUB) is 
contained in an image file that is loaded into RAM on a temporary basis until 
the main OS is brought up.

I guess it is possible, but it is hard (for me) to imagine a need to have that 
GRUB kernel match the kernel that will be used after the main OS is running.

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#245373 — Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question)

On Saturday, February 12, 2022 09:04:50 AM rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:
> The way I understand it (but I may be misremembering), grub temporaily
> boots into a, well I'll say restricted Linux kernel and OS which is used
> by grub until it boots up the main system.  The kernel used in grub may
> not (probably doesn't match the kernel used after grub brings up the main
> system, and it wil bring up the appropriate kernel for that main system
> (the one you choose).

I think I did mis-remember this, and the behavior I described is more like the 
behavior of the Debian installer (i.e., it boots an image (with a Linux 
kernel)  into RAM to use temporarily for the installation.

I just wanted to try to correct this for posterity.

If anyone can confirm this (both my mistake about grub and my (new) 
recollection about the Debian installer, those would be good things. :-)

Sorry for the noise!

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#245374 — Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question)

On 2022-02-14 10:02, rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:
> I think I did mis-remember this, and the behavior I described is more like the
> behavior of the Debian installer (i.e., it boots an image (with a Linux
> kernel)  into RAM to use temporarily for the installation.
> 
> I just wanted to try to correct this for posterity.
> 
> If anyone can confirm this (both my mistake about grub and my (new)
> recollection about the Debian installer, those would be good things.:-)
> 
> Sorry for the noise!

Not sure about the Debian installer (except that it does boot and run 
Linux, but not sure it ever switches to another kernel midway), but the 
Grub bootloader is kind of a mini-OS, in that it can read files from 
filesystems (rather than some other bootloaders that read from specific 
sectors/blocks of a disk).

Which is to say if you boot to grub and you are in the grub menu and see 
there is no entry for the particular kernel (or OS) you want, you can 
edit the boot parameters for any menu entry you see and boot the missing 
kernel (or OS) from then and there. (with other bootloaders you'd have 
to boot to the OS or boot from a live CD to modify the boot loader 
parameters).

Bijan

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#245392 — Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question)

On Mon 14 Feb 2022 at 12:13:20 (-0500), Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
> On 2/14/2022 10:19 AM, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
> > On 2022-02-14 10:02, rhkramer@gmail.com wrote:
> > > I think I did mis-remember this, and the behavior I described
> > > is more like the
> > > behavior of the Debian installer (i.e., it boots an image (with a Linux
> > > kernel)  into RAM to use temporarily for the installation.

What actually boots up in a typical Debian installer (that's netinst
in my case) is, from what I can understand from observations, quite
varied. Looking at the ISO, there's isolinux and an El Torito
section for booting as a DVD, some EFI stuff that heads into Grub,
autorun/setup exe files that look like Windows software, and even
loadlin for good old DOS to run. And, of course, you can point
your extant installation's Grub at the ISO's kernel and initrd
in order to boot it where you have no slot/socket/CD/DVD/floppy
or connector of any sort to push something into.

But the end result is the same: decompressing and loading the
vmlinuz kernel together with one of the initrd instances.
And that kernel remains in operation until you reboot into
your new system.

> AFAIK a ramdisk image is not only loaded when using the Debian
> installer, it is also loaded when booting a full installation on a
> disk. For example, the initrd.img-5.10.0-11-amd64 file that is created
> when installing a kernel and installed under /boot on bullseye systems
> contains the compressed contents of a filesystem that is loaded into
> RAM upon initial boot, and AFAIK that filesystem does not contain a
> kernel but it does contain kernel modules that are binary-compatible
> with the running kernel to support the proper initialization of
> various hardware. The main job of that initrd environment is to find
> and mount the installed root filesystem that is usually on an SSD
> these days.

I wish! :) But yes, the initrd for an installed system does just that.
OTOH the initrd for the debian-installer becomes the OS used for
building the new system onto the device mounted on its /target directory.
When you reboot, it's thrown away.

> > > I just wanted to try to correct this for posterity.
> > > 
> > > If anyone can confirm this (both my mistake about grub and my (new)
> > > recollection about the Debian installer, those would be good things.:-)
> > 
> > Not sure about the Debian installer (except that it does boot and
> > run Linux, but not sure it ever switches to another kernel
> > midway), but the Grub bootloader is kind of a mini-OS, in that it
> > can read files from filesystems (rather than some other
> > bootloaders that read from specific sectors/blocks of a disk).

I think that confuses the issue. Grub is just a program, not an OS.
It can run commands from a shell, and it can load lots of drivers,
but that doesn't even qualify it as a single-user OS.

It's technically correct to say that Grub is designed with a "kernel"
and modules, but that's mainly a way of saving space in the final
product, by having as little excess code included as possible.
There's no concept of kernel- and user-space. They could have as
easily named the kernel.img "trunk.img", and core.img "body.img",
to illustrate how Grub is agglomerated.

> > Which is to say if you boot to grub and you are in the grub menu
> > and see there is no entry for the particular kernel (or OS) you
> > want, you can edit the boot parameters for any menu entry you see
> > and boot the missing kernel (or OS) from then and there. (with
> > other bootloaders you'd have to boot to the OS or boot from a live
> > CD to modify the boot loader parameters).
> 
> Also, grub has its own shell, and sometimes if something is not
> configured right, grub may drop into its shell where a knowledgeable
> user can type in commands such as the ls command to list files on the
> disks attached to the system and the configfile command which can be
> used to load the grub configuration if for some reason grub was unable
> to find the grub.cfg file that tells grub how to boot the system. This
> is a useful feature for those who know how to use it, and it has saved
> me from having to reinstall on more that one occasion.

Effectively, Grub has two shells, Grub> and Grub rescue>, depending on
whether the "normal" module has been loaded, and about the only thing
you can sensibly do without normal is to find it and insmod it.

But most people will never see rescue, and with patience it's usually
fairly straightforward to stumble your way round the system with ls,
and find something to boot or chainload.

BTW a very useful command to kick off with in Grub is:

Grub> set pager=1

without which it can be hard to use:

Grub> help

Cheers,
David.

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#245397 — Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question)

On Tue, 15 Feb 2022 at 10:24, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:

> Effectively, Grub has two shells, Grub> and Grub rescue>, depending on
> whether the "normal" module has been loaded, and about the only thing
> you can sensibly do without normal is to find it and insmod it.

> But most people will never see rescue,

Not good enough, they need to try harder to break things! :)

> and with patience it's usually
> fairly straightforward to stumble your way round the system with ls,
> and find something to boot or chainload.
>
> BTW a very useful command to kick off with in Grub is:
>
> Grub> set pager=1
>
> without which it can be hard to use:
>
> Grub> help

This is very true. It really should be the default.

There is:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=763025
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?43307

Still open, but apparently overlooked. I imagine it would
be a simple patch that probably would be accepted.

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#245410 — Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question)

On 2022-02-15, David <bouncingcats@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Feb 2022 at 10:24, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Effectively, Grub has two shells, Grub> and Grub rescue>, depending on
>> whether the "normal" module has been loaded, and about the only thing
>> you can sensibly do without normal is to find it and insmod it.
>
>> But most people will never see rescue,
>
> Not good enough, they need to try harder to break things! :)
>
>> and with patience it's usually
>> fairly straightforward to stumble your way round the system with ls,
>> and find something to boot or chainload.
>>
>> BTW a very useful command to kick off with in Grub is:
>>
>> Grub> set pager=1
>>
>> without which it can be hard to use:
>>
>> Grub> help
>
> This is very true. It really should be the default.

To prevent text from scrolling off the screen, I learned.

> There is:
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=763025
> https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?43307
>
> Still open, but apparently overlooked. I imagine it would
> be a simple patch that probably would be accepted.
>
>


-- 

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#245434 — Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question)

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Lu, 14 feb 22, 17:23:52, David Wright wrote:
> > On 2/14/2022 10:19 AM, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
> > > 
> > > Not sure about the Debian installer (except that it does boot and
> > > run Linux, but not sure it ever switches to another kernel
> > > midway), but the Grub bootloader is kind of a mini-OS, in that it
> > > can read files from filesystems (rather than some other
> > > bootloaders that read from specific sectors/blocks of a disk).
> 
> I think that confuses the issue. Grub is just a program, not an OS.
> It can run commands from a shell, and it can load lots of drivers,
> but that doesn't even qualify it as a single-user OS.
 
Well, without digging too much into it GRUB seems to be almost as 
capable as DOS ;)

> It's technically correct to say that Grub is designed with a "kernel"
> and modules, but that's mainly a way of saving space in the final
> product, by having as little excess code included as possible.

As far as I recall there is a very strict limit for the first stage, 
because it has to fit in the MBR.

> There's no concept of kernel- and user-space. They could have as
> easily named the kernel.img "trunk.img", and core.img "body.img",
> to illustrate how Grub is agglomerated.

However, GRUB's capabilities are heavily influenced by what modules are 
available and loaded (as you mention below with the 'normal' module), 
and anyway, an OS isn't defined by having kernel- and user-space.

On the other hand it can't run *other* programs within it's environment 
(scripts in it's own scripting language don't count). When it loads a 
kernel or chain-loads another boot-loader it basically hands over 
control completely, so maybe this is the distinguishing limitation 
compared to a "real" OS.

(this is all as far as I know, and I might be very mistaken about it)
  
> Effectively, Grub has two shells, Grub> and Grub rescue>, depending on
> whether the "normal" module has been loaded, and about the only thing
> you can sensibly do without normal is to find it and insmod it.
> 
> But most people will never see rescue, and with patience it's usually
> fairly straightforward to stumble your way round the system with ls,
> and find something to boot or chainload.
> 
> BTW a very useful command to kick off with in Grub is:
> 
> Grub> set pager=1
> 
> without which it can be hard to use:
> 
> Grub> help

[:facepalm:]

Never bothered to search for something like this, I just assumed it's 
the kind of limitation one has to put up with in such a restricted 
environment (but then why would they write such long help texts, duh).

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

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#245436 — Re: Misremembered

 Andrei POPESCU writes:
> When it loads a kernel or chain-loads another boot-loader it basically
> hands over control completely,

Which is what DOS does.
-- 
John Hasler 
john@sugarbit.com
Elmwood, WI USA

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#245439 — Re: Misremembered

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Ma, 15 feb 22, 12:41:28, John Hasler wrote:
>  Andrei POPESCU writes:
> > When it loads a kernel or chain-loads another boot-loader it basically
> > hands over control completely,
> 
> Which is what DOS does.

That was possibly not the best choice of words from my side.

DOS was both very limited in capabilities and didn't implement any kind 
of access control or similar. Each application could basically take full 
control over the hardware[1], and any slightly advanced application did, 
because DOS didn't provide much for them to use[2].

But at any point the *same* instance of DOS was still in the RAM, and 
when exiting the application one would typically be back to the *same* 
DOS shell from where the application was started (unless it all crashed, 
of course).

When GRUB is chain-loading another boot-loader or loads an OS it's also 
being completely evicted from RAM. The only way I can think of to "go 
back" without rebooting is for another boot-loader to chain-load the 
"initial" GRUB (which is a new instance of GRUB and in practice is not 
much different then rebooting).

[1] This was probably the best breeding ground for computer viruses the 
bad guys could ever hope for, as they could "infect" (append themselves 
to) any file on the system and install themselves in the MBR.

[2] Apparently this also made applications much harder to port to other 
OSes, which in practice worked as a sort of platform lock-in.

Hope this explains,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

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#245445 — Re: Misremembered

Andrei writes:
> DOS was both very limited in capabilities and didn't implement any
> kind of access control or similar.

It *couldn't*.  The 8088/8086 lacked the hardware.

> This was probably the best breeding ground for computer viruses the
> bad guys could ever hope for, as they could "infect" (append
> themselves to) any file on the system and install themselves in the
> MBR.

Yes, "infected" floppy disks were a thing.  There really wasn't any way
to make money off viruses, though.


-- 
John Hasler 
john@sugarbit.com
Elmwood, WI USA

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#245447 — Re: Misremembered

Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> Yes, "infected" floppy disks were a thing. There really
>> wasn't any way to make money off viruses, though.
>
> I think McAffe would disagree.

Hahaha, "McAffe", it is the McDonald's where you buy
amphetamine :)

...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McAfee

Niobi: "For the first time, we saw machines at war with one
another" - maybe that would have been an even better
Matrix 4?

https://dataswamp.org/~incal/pimgs/machines-at-war.png

$ cmatrix -b -u 9 -C blue # once in a blue moon

https://dataswamp.org/~incal/pimgs/matrix.png

-- 
underground experts united
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

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#245448 — Re: Misremembered

> Yes, "infected" floppy disks were a thing.  There really wasn't any way
> to make money off viruses, though.

I think McAffe would disagree.


        Stefan

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#245450 — Re: Misremembered

On Tuesday, February 15, 2022 5:59:37 PM EST Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > Yes, "infected" floppy disks were a thing.  There really wasn't any
> > way to make money off viruses, though.
> 
> I think McAffe would disagree.
> 
Sorry, but that spammer is so disagreable that he would yell insults at 
the guy in the mirror, he is hitting my inbox 4-6 times a day with msgs 
that insult my inteligence because I haven't renewed a service I've never 
had nor needed.  And its been going on for months.

> 
>         Stefan
> 
> .


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

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#245456 — Re: Misremembered

On Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 06:45:15PM -0500, gene heskett wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 15, 2022 5:59:37 PM EST Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > > Yes, "infected" floppy disks were a thing.  There really wasn't any
> > > way to make money off viruses, though.
> > 
> > I think McAffe would disagree.
> > 
> Sorry, but that spammer is so disagreable that he would yell insults at 
> the guy in the mirror, he is hitting my inbox 4-6 times a day with msgs 
> that insult my inteligence because I haven't renewed a service I've never 
> had nor needed.  And its been going on for months.
> 
> > 
> >         Stefan
> > 
> > .

"That spammer" has been dead for a while, I think. You've just got some
random spam advertising anti-virus products to you. Block it/ignore it
and carry on? Probably going off-topic for debian-user if we rant
about spam too much :)

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

> 
> 
> Cheers, Gene Heskett.
> -- 
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
>  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
> If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
>  - Louis D. Brandeis
> Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
> 
> 
> 

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#245459 — Re: Misremembered

On 2/16/22, Andrew M.A. Cater <amacater@einval.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 06:45:15PM -0500, gene heskett wrote:
>> On Tuesday, February 15, 2022 5:59:37 PM EST Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> > > Yes, "infected" floppy disks were a thing.  There really wasn't any
>> > > way to make money off viruses, though.
>> >
>> > I think McAffe would disagree.
>> >
>> Sorry, but that spammer is so disagreable that he would yell insults at
>> the guy in the mirror, he is hitting my inbox 4-6 times a day with msgs
>> that insult my inteligence because I haven't renewed a service I've never
>>
>> had nor needed.  And its been going on for months.
>> > .
>
> "That spammer" has been dead for a while, I think. You've just got some
> random spam advertising anti-virus products to you. Block it/ignore it
> and carry on? Probably going off-topic for debian-user if we rant
> about spam too much :)


Pretty funny that I saved my draft of a similar thought process at the
same time yours hit the list. I was just checking my email archives
for those very same SPAM emails before sending.

It might or might not be about Debian-User in that case. The ones I'm
receiving are strangely targeted. They're being addressed to my first
name at AOL. I had a-sumed they were from a particular genre of
(unreciprocated) followers out on social media, but maybe they came
from us posting on here, too. That was a topic on here a while back.

That first name at AOL occasionally changes to something other than my
own. On too regular an occasion, it becomes a relative's first name,
instead. That potentially hints at some heavy duty online stalking
being perped in the name of obvious phishing.

Please be safe out there.....

Cindy :)
-- 
Cindy-Sue Causey
Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA
* runs with birdseed *

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#245442 — Re: Misremembered

> Well, without digging too much into it GRUB seems to be almost as 
> capable as DOS ;)

AFAICT it is also much bigger than DOS ever was, so it should be
expected ;-)


        Stefan

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#245485 — Re: Misremembered (was: Re: Stupid question)

On Tue 15 Feb 2022 at 19:28:48 (+0100), Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Lu, 14 feb 22, 17:23:52, David Wright wrote:
> > > On 2/14/2022 10:19 AM, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Not sure about the Debian installer (except that it does boot and
> > > > run Linux, but not sure it ever switches to another kernel
> > > > midway), but the Grub bootloader is kind of a mini-OS, in that it
> > > > can read files from filesystems (rather than some other
> > > > bootloaders that read from specific sectors/blocks of a disk).
> > 
> > I think that confuses the issue. Grub is just a program, not an OS.
> > It can run commands from a shell, and it can load lots of drivers,
> > but that doesn't even qualify it as a single-user OS.
>  
> Well, without digging too much into it GRUB seems to be almost as 
> capable as DOS ;)
> 
> > It's technically correct to say that Grub is designed with a "kernel"
> > and modules, but that's mainly a way of saving space in the final
> > product, by having as little excess code included as possible.
> 
> As far as I recall there is a very strict limit for the first stage, 
> because it has to fit in the MBR.

It's a very strict limit but, in another sense, very generous,
seeing that its code barely consists of more than Jump To Sector N.

When you embed Grub's core image in the "MBR Gap" (IMO the second
safest place), that's where the size constraints kick in. On my
old MBR laptop, it has less than 32KB space. (For comparison,

│ io.sys                    │  40774│May 31  1994│
│ msdos.sys                 │  38138│May 31  1994│
│ command.com               │  54645│May 31  1994│

for DOS 6.22, before you start adding any drivers.)

One of the reasons I converted all my drives to GPT (bar said
laptop's) was the BIOS Boot partition, which must be the safest
place for Grub's core image.

> > There's no concept of kernel- and user-space. They could have as
> > easily named the kernel.img "trunk.img", and core.img "body.img",
> > to illustrate how Grub is agglomerated.
> 
> However, GRUB's capabilities are heavily influenced by what modules are 
> available and loaded (as you mention below with the 'normal' module), 
> and anyway, an OS isn't defined by having kernel- and user-space.

I wasn't trying to define an OS, but just correcting the post that
drew a false equivalence between something called "Grub's kernel"
and the linux kernel.

> On the other hand it can't run *other* programs within it's environment 
> (scripts in it's own scripting language don't count). When it loads a 
> kernel or chain-loads another boot-loader it basically hands over 
> control completely, so maybe this is the distinguishing limitation 
> compared to a "real" OS.

I think an OS has to have something to manage, ie other programs,
and "manage" has to mean more than one function like loading
a program. Generally a computer system's "product" comes from
the programs that the OS manages, and not from the OS itself,
which usually produces nothing at all.

Cheers,
David.

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#245289

On 2/12/22 01:04, Hans wrote:
> Dear list,
> 
> I am thinking of a solution of a problem. But I have an understanding problem,
> maybe you can give some background knowledge.
> 
> The problem: I have one harddrive, there are two linuces installed.
> 
> The partitions are as followed:
> 
> kali-linux: 1st primary -> /boot
>                   2nd > /
> 
> 
> debian    3rd primary -> /boot
>                 4th logical > /
> 	             > swap
>                                  > /home (encrypted)
>                                  > /usr (encrypted)
>                                  > /var (encrypted)
> 
> 
> This is the structure, and as said before, only ONE drive.
> 
> Now my question: Is it possible to configure grub that way, that I can choose
> either kali or debian to boot?
> 
> What I might to know, please correct me:
> Both are running different kernels. As far as I understood grub, I can set the
> root partition ( / ) with the UUID. This is an entry in grub.cfg and maybe in
> /etc/default/grub.
> 
> But how can I tell grub, to use the kernel of the second /boot?
> 
> I dunno, if it is possible at all, to get a dual boot, the way I want it. With
> a combination of Windows + Linux on one harddrive this is working, however,
> just because grub does not touch the windows bootloader (as fas as I know),
> and what of course is also working, if you got two harddrives, each with
> different linux. They all can be booted from one grub installation, of course.
> 
> Maybe I could find a solution, if I would have fully understood how grub is
> working, and what it is doing.
> 
> Any hints are welcome, and if this does never work at all, please drop me a
> line.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Hans


It's not a stupid question -- it's an observation of how complexity 
grows as the number of items grows.


I have found it is better to install mobile racks in each computer, 
install one OS disk in each computer, and install one OS on each OS disk.


But, if you have fewer computers that OS's, you may find that you are 
constantly shutting down, swapping disks, and rebooting another OS; only 
to find that you need the OS you just shutdown.  The solution to this 
problem is virtualization.


David

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