I need help with grub - please

[mattrix]

sorry, this is a real newbie question (good job its a newbie forum

I'm lost before I can start using linux I have to install grub; grub is used to start linux, before you can install grub you must start linux .....

OK, I've borrowed a live-dvd from a friend (my burner is stuffed), its got Grub v 1.98; so thats what I'm stuck with (at least for now) Maybe I'm not stuck, but I'm finding the live cd too large and confusing, with filesystems I've never heard of and I cant work out what I can and cant do, given its a non-volatile media.

Anyway grub2 is good, as I think I can boot ISO images from an msdos or linux partition, without burning a cd; however, its bad, as to create grub.cfg I will need to build grub2 for whatever flavor of linux I finally choose (can you compile Grub for any kernel and use any library to do it?)

What I am trying to do is a "frugal install" of a smaller distro, with boot, fat16, swap, & distro partitions, (the computer is p5mmx 200/64MB which runs 98SE and off97 fine, but seems to be minimal for linux). All the instructions to do this, tell you to copy the files across and modify your grub config (ie you already have it installed)

This is where I'm up to,
I have created 2primary & 2 extended partitions.
Put ext2 filesystems onto the first primary partition (for booting), and the 2nd extended (for linux)
Run grub-install, so there is a directory grub at the root of the first partition.
created a "linux" directory at the root of each of the ext2 partitions
copied vmlinuz & initrd.gz to "linux" on the boot partition, copied the .sfs files to the other partition directory

I don't know what to put in the grub file and what 'x' flages to reset to tie all this together.

Can someone please help me from here?

I think a menu.lst would look like:
Title "linux"
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/linux/vmlinuz psubdir=(hd0,6)/linux
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd.gz

thanks matt

[oz]

I'm lost before I can start using linux I have to install grub; grub is used to start linux, before you can install grub you must start linux .....

Hello and welcome!

The installer for most distros will install GRUB for you during the installation routine, so you might be making things harder for yourself than you really need to. Check the following HowTo for the proper steps to download the distribution ISO file of your choice, burn it to disk as an image, and then boot your system with your new installation disk:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ins...ll-cd-dvd.html


Edit: Oops... I just reread your post and noticed the part about the cd/dvd burner being broken. In that case, give UNetbootin a try:

UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads

[oz]

Note that if UNetbootin doesn't work, you can grab a new cd/dvd drive for under $20 at places like Amazon or NewEgg. Good luck ... hope it all works out and you will enjoy running Linux.

[yancek]

I'd agree with Ozar that you are making this more difficult than it should be.
First off, more information would be helpful. You don't mention which of the hundreds of different distributions of Linux you are using, that would be helpful to start. Hardware information would also be helpful, particularly the amount of memory. You indicate it is or was running W98 so I expect it's a pretty old machine with low memory. New full distributions of Linux will be difficult to use with less than 512MB.

It sounds to me like you are trying to copy the directories/files from the DVD to your drive??

Also, you indicate the DVD you borrowed has Grub 1.98 (generally referred to as Grub2) which means you probably have a version of Ubuntu. The sample entry you posted won't work on Grub2, that is the format for the older Grub.

It would help if you posted more details and exactly which distro you are trying to install.

[mattrix]

I did mention the hardware specs, p5mmx 200 Mhz cpu /64MB RAM.

The dvd is borrowed only so that I can install/configure grub, but the instructions I could find are for Grub legacy. (although I dont think they are complete)
The sample listing is for menu.lst and I need to do the equivalent for grub2.
I think the configuration file I have to setup is 40_custom in /etc/grub.d, not the grub file i mentioned in my earlier post.

Yes it is Ubuntu, are they the only ones using Grub2? Does grub2 have problems?

The distro I've got is puppy which stores its filesystem in sfs files, and I'm doing a "frugal install"

more questions,
I'm not sure about how much grub does. Does it load the initrd.gz?
How is the root filesystem loaded? From a script in initrd.gz?
What if there is no initrd? ( or do you have to have one?)

[Jonathan183]

My advice .... get your friend to burn puppy to CD for you ... you can boot from it & use it as a live CD. You should find it runs fine that way ... but if you want you can then look at doing a hard drive install after that - using the puppy CD

[mattrix]

OK some progress,

When I start up grub comes up into rescue mode prompt and when I type,


Grub Rescue> set prefix=(hd0,msdos1)
Grub Rescue> insmod /grub/normal.mod
Grub Rescue> normal
Grub> linux (hd0,msdos1)/wary/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=wary
Grub> initrd (hd0,msdos6)/wary-511/initrd.gz
Grub> boot

and puppy boots!

So its all working, but I still need to fix the 2 problems with grub,
* no prefix being set by the MBR
* how to create a grub.cfg from the ubuntu dvd. update-grub produces errors from os-probe