[gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[John P. Burkett]

On a x86 machine I did "emerge -D -uav world" and got a response that
read in part as follows:
 * Messages for package sys-boot/grub-0.97-r9:
 *
 * To avoid automounting and autoinstalling with /boot,
 * just export the DONT_MOUNT_BOOT variable.
 *
 * *** IMPORTANT NOTE: you must run grub and install
 * the new version's stage1 to your MBR.  Until you do,
 * stage1 and stage2 will still be the old version, but
 * later stages will be the new version, which could
 * cause problems such as an unbootable system.
 * This means you must use either grub-install or perform
 * root/setup manually! For more help, see the handbook:
 *
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10#grub-install-auto
 * To interactively install grub files to another device such as a USB
 * stick, just run the following and specify the directory as prompted:
 *    emerge --config =grub-0.97-r9
 * Alternately, you can export GRUB_ALT_INSTALLDIR=/path/to/use to tell
 * grub where to install in a non-interactive way.

After reading
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10#grub-install-auto
I did "grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab". That seems to have
produced the needed /etc/mtab file.  Now I'm confused by the part of the
manual with code listings 2.6 and
2.7 and the associated commentary.
The manual suggests doing "grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda"
but later says "If your system does not have any floppy drives, add the
--no-floppy option to the above command to prevent grub from probing the
(non-existing) floppy drives."  My machine has a floppy drive. Should I
omit the --no-floppy option and just do "grub-install /dev/sda" ?

-John


-- 
John P. Burkett
Department of Economics
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881-0808
USA

phone (401) 874-9195

Re: [gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[Dale]

John P. Burkett wrote:
> On a x86 machine I did "emerge -D -uav world" and got a response that
> read in part as follows:
>  * Messages for package sys-boot/grub-0.97-r9:
>  *
>  * To avoid automounting and autoinstalling with /boot,
>  * just export the DONT_MOUNT_BOOT variable.
>  *
>  * *** IMPORTANT NOTE: you must run grub and install
>  * the new version's stage1 to your MBR.  Until you do,
>  * stage1 and stage2 will still be the old version, but
>  * later stages will be the new version, which could
>  * cause problems such as an unbootable system.
>  * This means you must use either grub-install or perform
>  * root/setup manually! For more help, see the handbook:
>  *
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10#grub-install-auto
>  * To interactively install grub files to another device such as a USB
>  * stick, just run the following and specify the directory as prompted:
>  *    emerge --config =grub-0.97-r9
>  * Alternately, you can export GRUB_ALT_INSTALLDIR=/path/to/use to tell
>  * grub where to install in a non-interactive way.
>
> After reading
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10#grub-install-auto
> I did "grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab". That seems to have
> produced the needed /etc/mtab file.  Now I'm confused by the part of the
> manual with code listings 2.6 and
> 2.7 and the associated commentary.
> The manual suggests doing "grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda"
> but later says "If your system does not have any floppy drives, add the
> --no-floppy option to the above command to prevent grub from probing the
> (non-existing) floppy drives."  My machine has a floppy drive. Should I
> omit the --no-floppy option and just do "grub-install /dev/sda" ?
>
> -John
>
>
>   

I got something similar once before.  All I did was run grub, then while
inside grub, run root and setup.  Basically like I did when i first
installed Linux.  It has worked so far so I guess that was all that it
needed was to update the files in /boot for when it first loads after
the BIOS.

Hope that helps.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[Alan McKinnon]

On Saturday 30 May 2009 20:59:00 John P. Burkett wrote:
> The manual suggests doing "grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda"
> but later says "If your system does not have any floppy drives, add the
> --no-floppy option to the above command to prevent grub from probing the
> (non-existing) floppy drives."  My machine has a floppy drive. Should I
> omit the --no-floppy option and just do "grub-install /dev/sda" ?

The manual is actually quite clear if you know even just a little bit about 
boot loaders.

Use --no-floppy if

a) you do not have a floppy drive
b) you do not intend grub to use the floppy drive you do have

The question you should be asking is "have I ever booted off a floppy drive in 
the last X years, and do I ever intend do so again?"

The first example in the manual is assuming the answers are no and no - pretty 
normal for the vast majority of users.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[John P. Burkett]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Saturday 30 May 2009 20:59:00 John P. Burkett wrote:
>> The manual suggests doing "grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda"
>> but later says "If your system does not have any floppy drives, add the
>> --no-floppy option to the above command to prevent grub from probing the
>> (non-existing) floppy drives."  My machine has a floppy drive. Should I
>> omit the --no-floppy option and just do "grub-install /dev/sda" ?
> 
> The manual is actually quite clear if you know even just a little bit about 
> boot loaders.
> 
> Use --no-floppy if
> 
> a) you do not have a floppy drive
> b) you do not intend grub to use the floppy drive you do have
> 
> The question you should be asking is "have I ever booted off a floppy drive in 
> the last X years, and do I ever intend do so again?"
> 
> The first example in the manual is assuming the answers are no and no - pretty 
> normal for the vast majority of users.
> 
Thanks, Dale and Alan, for your suggestions. Doing
grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda
as root elicits the following response:
/dev/md1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.

In my /dev directory, I see a sda and a md1 file.

Suggestions for diagnosing or resolving the problem would be much
appreciated.

John

-- 
John P. Burkett
Department of Economics
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881-0808
USA

phone (401) 874-9195

Re: [gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 31 May 2009 18:12:34 John P. Burkett wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Saturday 30 May 2009 20:59:00 John P. Burkett wrote:
> >> The manual suggests doing "grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda"
> >> but later says "If your system does not have any floppy drives, add the
> >> --no-floppy option to the above command to prevent grub from probing the
> >> (non-existing) floppy drives."  My machine has a floppy drive. Should I
> >> omit the --no-floppy option and just do "grub-install /dev/sda" ?
> >
> > The manual is actually quite clear if you know even just a little bit
> > about boot loaders.
> >
> > Use --no-floppy if
> >
> > a) you do not have a floppy drive
> > b) you do not intend grub to use the floppy drive you do have
> >
> > The question you should be asking is "have I ever booted off a floppy
> > drive in the last X years, and do I ever intend do so again?"
> >
> > The first example in the manual is assuming the answers are no and no -
> > pretty normal for the vast majority of users.
>
> Thanks, Dale and Alan, for your suggestions. Doing
> grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda
> as root elicits the following response:
> /dev/md1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.
>
> In my /dev directory, I see a sda and a md1 file.
>
> Suggestions for diagnosing or resolving the problem would be much
> appreciated.
>
> John

md1 is a software raid drive. grub may or may not be able to read it depending 
on what kind of raid it is.

But I doubt you are booting from that if you have an sda, so even though grub 
finds it, just don't use it and ignore the message. You told grub where to 
install the boot loader, and it will have done that.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[John P. Burkett]

Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Sunday 31 May 2009 18:12:34 John P. Burkett wrote:
>> Alan McKinnon wrote:
>>> On Saturday 30 May 2009 20:59:00 John P. Burkett wrote:
>>>> The manual suggests doing "grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda"
>>>> but later says "If your system does not have any floppy drives, add the
>>>> --no-floppy option to the above command to prevent grub from probing the
>>>> (non-existing) floppy drives."  My machine has a floppy drive. Should I
>>>> omit the --no-floppy option and just do "grub-install /dev/sda" ?
>>> The manual is actually quite clear if you know even just a little bit
>>> about boot loaders.
>>>
>>> Use --no-floppy if
>>>
>>> a) you do not have a floppy drive
>>> b) you do not intend grub to use the floppy drive you do have
>>>
>>> The question you should be asking is "have I ever booted off a floppy
>>> drive in the last X years, and do I ever intend do so again?"
>>>
>>> The first example in the manual is assuming the answers are no and no -
>>> pretty normal for the vast majority of users.
>> Thanks, Dale and Alan, for your suggestions. Doing
>> grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda
>> as root elicits the following response:
>> /dev/md1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.
>>
>> In my /dev directory, I see a sda and a md1 file.
>>
>> Suggestions for diagnosing or resolving the problem would be much
>> appreciated.
>>
>> John
> 
> md1 is a software raid drive. grub may or may not be able to read it depending 
> on what kind of raid it is.
> 
> But I doubt you are booting from that if you have an sda, so even though grub 
> finds it, just don't use it and ignore the message. You told grub where to 
> install the boot loader, and it will have done that.
> 
Thanks, Alan.  I'll trust that grub works now.
-John


-- 
John P. Burkett
Department of Economics
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881-0808
USA

phone (401) 874-9195

Re: [gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 31 May 2009 22:06:45 John P. Burkett wrote:
> Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > On Sunday 31 May 2009 18:12:34 John P. Burkett wrote:

> >> In my /dev directory, I see a sda and a md1 file.
> >>
> >> Suggestions for diagnosing or resolving the problem would be much
> >> appreciated.
> >>
> >> John
> >
> > md1 is a software raid drive. grub may or may not be able to read it
> > depending on what kind of raid it is.
> >
> > But I doubt you are booting from that if you have an sda, so even though
> > grub finds it, just don't use it and ignore the message. You told grub
> > where to install the boot loader, and it will have done that.
>
> Thanks, Alan.  I'll trust that grub works now.

Keep a bootable media handy

For just in case it doesn't work

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[Dirk Heinrichs]

Am Samstag, 30. Mai 2009 20:59:00 schrieb John P. Burkett:
> On a x86 machine I did "emerge -D -uav world" and got a response that
> read in part as follows:
>  * Messages for package sys-boot/grub-0.97-r9:

There's no need whatsoever to update grub once it's in your MBR. There's even 
no need to keep the package on your machine, you can just uninstall it.

>  * To avoid automounting and autoinstalling with /boot,
>  * just export the DONT_MOUNT_BOOT variable.

There's a bug open in bugzilla to fix this silly behaviour of the grub ebuild: 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=223311

Bye...

	Dirk

Re: [gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 31 May 2009 19:43:55 +0200, Dirk Heinrichs wrote:

> > On a x86 machine I did "emerge -D -uav world" and got a response that
> > read in part as follows:
> >  * Messages for package sys-boot/grub-0.97-r9:  
> 
> There's no need whatsoever to update grub once it's in your MBR.
> There's even no need to keep the package on your machine, you can just
> uninstall it

Not updating your MBR means your stage 1 is a different version from your
stage1.5 and stage2, which may or may not cause problems.

Or you you mean there's no need to install the newer version at all?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Get your grubby hands off my tagline! I stole it first!

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Re: [gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[Dirk Heinrichs]

Am Sonntag, 31. Mai 2009 19:57:01 schrieb Neil Bothwick:
> Not updating your MBR means your stage 1 is a different version from your
> stage1.5 and stage2, which may or may not cause problems.
>
> Or you you mean there's no need to install the newer version at all?

Yes, so that the above cannot happen, especially because of that broken 
ebuild.

Bye...

	Dirk