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installing/using grub-legacy

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  installing/using grub-legacy Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2015-10-22 00:10 +0200
    Re: installing/using grub-legacy David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2015-10-22 02:40 +0200
      Re: installing/using grub-legacy Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-10-23 18:20 +0200
        Re: installing/using grub-legacy Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-10-23 18:40 +0200
          Re: installing/using grub-legacy David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2015-10-23 19:10 +0200
            Re: installing/using grub-legacy Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-10-23 20:10 +0200
              Re: installing/using grub-legacy Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2015-10-23 21:00 +0200
                Re: installing/using grub-legacy Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-10-23 23:40 +0200
                  Re: installing/using grub-legacy Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2015-10-24 00:30 +0200
                    Re: installing/using grub-legacy Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-10-24 00:50 +0200
                    Re: installing/using grub-legacy Chris Bannister <cbannister@slingshot.co.nz> - 2015-10-24 09:30 +0200
                      Re: installing/using grub-legacy Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2015-10-24 10:20 +0200
                        Re: installing/using grub-legacy "Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net> - 2015-10-24 11:20 +0200
                          Re: installing/using grub-legacy Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-10-24 13:00 +0200
                            Re: installing/using grub-legacy Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2015-10-24 21:50 +0200
                              Re: installing/using grub-legacy Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-10-25 00:00 +0200
                                Re: installing/using grub-legacy Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2015-10-25 11:50 +0100
                                  Re: installing/using grub-legacy Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-10-25 23:00 +0100
                                    Re: installing/using grub-legacy David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2015-10-25 23:50 +0100
                    Re: installing/using grub-legacy moxalt <moxalt@riseup.net> - 2015-10-24 18:40 +0200
                      Re: installing/using grub-legacy John Hasler <jhasler@newsguy.com> - 2015-10-24 19:10 +0200
    Re: installing/using grub-legacy Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2015-10-23 21:10 +0200
      Re: installing/using grub-legacy Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2015-10-24 03:40 +0200
        Re: installing/using grub-legacy Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2015-11-02 08:50 +0100
          Re: installing/using grub-legacy David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2015-11-02 15:50 +0100
            Re: installing/using grub-legacy Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2015-11-02 16:20 +0100
            Re: installing/using grub-legacy Felix Miata <mrmazda@earthlink.net> - 2015-11-02 20:50 +0100

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#159738

moxalt writes:
> Was there a similar outcry over GRUB superseding LILO as there was
> over systemd superseding sysvinit?

No.  There was some grumbling but nothing depends on Grub so it is
trivially easy to continue to use Lilo (as I do).  
-- 
John Hasler 
jhasler@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA

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#159700

Felix Miata composed on 2015-10-21 18:02 (UTC-0400):

> All my many installations are seriously multiboot, with typically no less
> than 10 distro installations within a HD's first year of use, and upwards of
> 30 partitions as HD warranty becomes a distant memory.

> In order to Keep It (multiboot) Stupidly Simple, most booting here is via
> Grub 0.97.x. So as a first attempt to revert from grub2 to grub-legacy I've
> been trying with a 64 bit intel CPU wheezy installation on host msi85. I did
> apt-get purge of os-prober and everything I could identify as related to
> grub2, rebooted, then tried apt-get install grub-legacy. That pulled in
> grub-common, claiming to have installed both. But, nothing reached
> /boot/grub/.
...
> Enabling use as bootloader on the / partition can be a simple matter
> of creating a menu.lst and running setup from the grub shell. Thus, I rarely
> make use of any grub scripts personally managing multiboot configuration.
...
> When I first tried to run grub from root shell in wheezy, first command
> attempted, as suggested by grub's man page, is find /boot/grub/stage1. This
> listed the first 3 instances, (hd0,0), (hd0,1), (hd0,7), then hung. I aborted
> with Ctrl-C, then rebooted after disconnecting hd1, and tried again, reaching
> same hang. Anyone know whether this hang would be a bug, known or previously
> unknown, or some pre-configuration or configuration required in a debian that
> isn't necessary in an rpm distro? I tried searching on bugs.debian.org, but
> as a 15 year user of various Bugzillas, I'm not making much sense of how the
> search by keyword(s) process is supposed to work on
> https://www.debian.org/Bugs/. I get an error message "An error occurred.
> Error was: You have to choose something to select by " but with no sign of
> what mandatory select list I'm missing.

> I tried running setup for wheezy from a grub> shell in openSUSE 13.1, but
> attempting to chainload boot from it, it only does

> 	chainloader (hd0,14)+1
> 	GRUB Loading stage2..

> and locks up the machine.

> I tried repeating setup from LMDE2 Betsy like I tried in openSUSE, but it
> hangs sooner than it did in wheezy, simply by hitting <return> after typing
> find /boot/grub/stage1. I tried to chroot to wheezy from lmde to run grub
> shell, but it hangs after showing instance 3 (hd0,7) same as run booting
> wheezy directly.

After perusing /usr/sbin/grub-install, as suggested by first thread response,
I tried:

	# grub-install /dev/sda15

The entire result is:

	Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
	_

IOW, grub-install hangs in like manner to running setup from the grub>
prompt. Ctrl-Fn works. And after waiting about 5 minutes hoping some loop
might timeout, Ctrl-C succeeded to abort the script. Nothing shows up in
dmesg or /var/log/* to provide any recognizable clue why the failure. The
script did succeed to cp /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-pc/* to /boot/grub/, as all
*stage* files there now acquired a current date/time stamp (291,076 bytes in
9 files), as did /boot/grub/default.

So, I booted a different host, and tried roughly the same overall process on
Jessie:

1-purge grub2*
2-install grub-legacy
3-copy a device.map from a co-installed distro to /boot/grub/
4-grub-install /dev/sda21
5-# grub --> grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
6-create /boot/grub/menu.lst

Step 4 completed, but with an error message about some sort of stage1 read
failure.

Step 5 hung, instantly, so after waiting a bit, I aborted with Ctrl-C. Again,
no apparent clues are to be found in dmesg or /var/log/*

I attempted to chainload to Jessie from the main bootloader. All that results
is a grub> prompt from which a kernel command results in "error: can't find
command `kernel', and an initrd command results in
	alloc magic is broken at 0xdd901170: 0.
	Aborted. Press any key to exit.
	No boot device available -
	strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility
	Press F5 to run onboard diagnostics

F1 triggered reboot. Again from Jessie boot, # grub --> grub> find
/boot/grub/stage1 hangs, so I can't help but thing the grub-legacy debs or
some deb(s) it/they depend on on the mirrors is broken.

Next I tried booting openSUSE 13.1, starting grub shell, and setting up
(hd0,20). It claimed to succeed. In attempting chainload to it and running
find /boot/grub/stage1, it outputs only (hd0,2), then hard locks the machine.
Retrying but instead executing 'root (0,20)' succeeds, only to be followed by
failure of any kernel to be found by any name offered. configfile
(hd0,20)/boot/grub/menu.lst is not found, while chainloader (hd0,2)+1 -> boot
produces expected result.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

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#159711

Felix Miata composed on 2015-10-23 15:08 (UTC-0400):

> Felix Miata composed on 2015-10-21 18:02 (UTC-0400):

>> All my many installations are seriously multiboot, with typically no less
>> than 10 distro installations within a HD's first year of use, and upwards of
>> 30 partitions as HD warranty becomes a distant memory.

>> In order to Keep It (multiboot) Stupidly Simple, most booting here is via
>> Grub 0.97.x. So as a first attempt to revert from grub2 to grub-legacy I've
>> been trying with a 64 bit intel CPU wheezy installation on host msi85. I did
>> apt-get purge of os-prober and everything I could identify as related to
>> grub2, rebooted, then tried apt-get install grub-legacy. That pulled in
>> grub-common, claiming to have installed both. But, nothing reached
>> /boot/grub/.
> ...
>> Enabling use as bootloader on the / partition can be a simple matter
>> of creating a menu.lst and running setup from the grub shell. Thus, I rarely
>> make use of any grub scripts personally managing multiboot configuration.
> ...
>> When I first tried to run grub from root shell in wheezy, first command
>> attempted, as suggested by grub's man page, is find /boot/grub/stage1. This
>> listed the first 3 instances, (hd0,0), (hd0,1), (hd0,7), then hung. I aborted
>> with Ctrl-C, then rebooted after disconnecting hd1, and tried again, reaching
>> same hang. Anyone know whether this hang would be a bug, known or previously
>> unknown, or some pre-configuration or configuration required in a debian that
>> isn't necessary in an rpm distro? I tried searching on bugs.debian.org, but
>> as a 15 year user of various Bugzillas, I'm not making much sense of how the
>> search by keyword(s) process is supposed to work on
>> https://www.debian.org/Bugs/. I get an error message "An error occurred.
>> Error was: You have to choose something to select by " but with no sign of
>> what mandatory select list I'm missing.

>> I tried running setup for wheezy from a grub> shell in openSUSE 13.1, but
>> attempting to chainload boot from it, it only does

>> 	chainloader (hd0,14)+1
>> 	GRUB Loading stage2..

>> and locks up the machine.

>> I tried repeating setup from LMDE2 Betsy like I tried in openSUSE, but it
>> hangs sooner than it did in wheezy, simply by hitting <return> after typing
>> find /boot/grub/stage1. I tried to chroot to wheezy from lmde to run grub
>> shell, but it hangs after showing instance 3 (hd0,7) same as run booting
>> wheezy directly.

> After perusing /usr/sbin/grub-install, as suggested by first thread response,
> I tried:

> 	# grub-install /dev/sda15

> The entire result is:

> 	Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
> 	_

> IOW, grub-install hangs in like manner to running setup from the grub>
> prompt. Ctrl-Fn works. And after waiting about 5 minutes hoping some loop
> might timeout, Ctrl-C succeeded to abort the script. Nothing shows up in
> dmesg or /var/log/* to provide any recognizable clue why the failure. The
> script did succeed to cp /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-pc/* to /boot/grub/, as all
> *stage* files there now acquired a current date/time stamp (291,076 bytes in
> 9 files), as did /boot/grub/default.

> So, I booted a different host, and tried roughly the same overall process on
> Jessie:

> 1-purge grub2*
> 2-install grub-legacy
> 3-copy a device.map from a co-installed distro to /boot/grub/
> 4-grub-install /dev/sda21
> 5-# grub --> grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
> 6-create /boot/grub/menu.lst

> Step 4 completed, but with an error message about some sort of stage1 read
> failure.

> Step 5 hung, instantly, so after waiting a bit, I aborted with Ctrl-C. Again,
> no apparent clues are to be found in dmesg or /var/log/*

> I attempted to chainload to Jessie from the main bootloader. All that results
> is a grub> prompt from which a kernel command results in "error: can't find
> command `kernel', and an initrd command results in
> 	alloc magic is broken at 0xdd901170: 0.
> 	Aborted. Press any key to exit.
> 	No boot device available -
> 	strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility
> 	Press F5 to run onboard diagnostics

> F1 triggered reboot. Again from Jessie boot, # grub --> grub> find
> /boot/grub/stage1 hangs, so I can't help but thing the grub-legacy debs or
> some deb(s) it/they depend on on the mirrors is broken.

> Next I tried booting openSUSE 13.1, starting grub shell, and setting up
> (hd0,20). It claimed to succeed. In attempting chainload to it and running
> find /boot/grub/stage1, it outputs only (hd0,2), then hard locks the machine.
> Retrying but instead executing 'root (0,20)' succeeds, only to be followed by
> failure of any kernel to be found by any name offered. configfile
> (hd0,20)/boot/grub/menu.lst is not found, while chainloader (hd0,2)+1 -> boot
> produces expected result.

Apparently lack of EXT4 support in grub-legacy on Debian is multifaceted. By
first moving the installation to an EXT3 partition, then skipping the grub
shell confirmation step (find /boot/grub/stage1), both root and setup can
perform their functions correctly, installing grub to the PBR, to which
chainloading works as expected.

Now if only I could figure out how to get /boot/message to be recognized and
used after 'aptitude install gfxboot'. :-p
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

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#160087

Felix Miata composed on 2015-10-23 21:32 (UTC-0500):
...
> Apparently lack of EXT4 support in grub-legacy on Debian is multifaceted....

Problem continues in current incarnation of Stretch.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#160122

On Mon 02 Nov 2015 at 01:14:48 (-0500), Felix Miata wrote:
> Felix Miata composed on 2015-10-23 21:32 (UTC-0500):
> ...
> > Apparently lack of EXT4 support in grub-legacy on Debian is multifaceted....
> 
> Problem continues in current incarnation of Stretch.

Does bug #511121 not work for you? Or does its implementation
contradict your original criterion ("In order to Keep It (multiboot)
Stupidly Simple, most booting here is via Grub 0.97.x.").

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB_Legacy
makes an oblique reference to ext4 without any comment, but that lack
may be because the page is aimed at people *preserving* their legacy,
not people making a new installation of Grub Legacy.

It's widely reported that there's no support of Grub Legacy from
upstream, and no new features will be added.

Cheers,
David.

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#160125

On Mon 02 Nov 2015 at 08:46:58 -0600, David Wright wrote:

> On Mon 02 Nov 2015 at 01:14:48 (-0500), Felix Miata wrote:
> > Felix Miata composed on 2015-10-23 21:32 (UTC-0500):
> > ...
> > > Apparently lack of EXT4 support in grub-legacy on Debian is multifaceted....
> > 
> > Problem continues in current incarnation of Stretch.
> 
> Does bug #511121 not work for you? Or does its implementation
> contradict your original criterion ("In order to Keep It (multiboot)
> Stupidly Simple, most booting here is via Grub 0.97.x.").
> 
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB_Legacy
> makes an oblique reference to ext4 without any comment, but that lack
> may be because the page is aimed at people *preserving* their legacy,
> not people making a new installation of Grub Legacy.
> 
> It's widely reported that there's no support of Grub Legacy from
> upstream, and no new features will be added.

It's good to have a reminder that Grub Legacy has been consigned to the
trashcan of unmaintained software.

  Please note that GRUB Legacy is in maintanance mode and new
  features are only accepted in GRUB 2 (grub-pc package).

in the package description eliminates any hope that Debian will pick up
the baton.

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#160137

David Wright composed on 2015-11-02 08:46 (UTC-0600):

> On Mon 02 Nov 2015 at 01:14:48 (-0500), Felix Miata wrote:

>> Felix Miata composed on 2015-10-23 21:32 (UTC-0500):
>> ...
>> > Apparently lack of EXT4 support in grub-legacy on Debian is multifaceted....

>> Problem continues in current incarnation of Stretch.

> Does bug #511121 not work for you? Or does its implementation
> contradict your original criterion ("In order to Keep It (multiboot)
> Stupidly Simple, most booting here is via Grub 0.97.x.").

I can't answer this. I don't build or patch binaries.

But I can say that the 0.97 versions included in Gentoo, Mageia 5 and
openSUSE Leap and Tumbleweed releases do work as expected, maybe because of
the Launchpad patch https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=511121
mentions. Since it dropped Grub Legacy, I choose to install no bootloader on
Fedora installations, and configure them using openSUSE 13.1's grub-0.97-194.
On new disks I partition in advance using Knoppix and run grub setup on a
primary partition using Knoppix's Grub Legacy.

My Wheezy, Jessie and Stretch installations have Grub2 purged, grub-legacy
installed, and grub-legacy setup run by booting openSUSE 13.1 and running its
0.97-194. But the grub-legacy shell on them is broken.

> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB_Legacy
> makes an oblique reference to ext4 without any comment, but that lack
> may be because the page is aimed at people *preserving* their legacy,
> not people making a new installation of Grub Legacy.

> It's widely reported that there's no support of Grub Legacy from
> upstream, and no new features will be added.

Maybe for this context that is a question of what "new" means. Gentoo's,
Mageia's and openSUSE's 0.97 versions have supported EXT4 since long before
Grub2 graduated from Beta (reached v2.0).

It would be nice if people didn't have to remember to not execute commands in
Debian's grub-legacy shell that cause it to hang as a result of it attempting
to read during its search processes the EXT4 filesystems on which other
distros live. It's not sufficient to avoid hanging Debian's grub-legacy shell
to install Debian to EXT3 instead of EXT4.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

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