SimplyMEPIS 6.5 gets along with Linspire 5.0.59, despite my boneheadedness
Yeah. This is a long one, folks, but I do want to get some information into one place about things like this, so this will have to do for the time being.
I messed-up a Linux installation this week, and spent a few hours earning my redemption from said sin. Of course, I need to find a way to work-off all those colorful remarks I muttered under my breath about Michael Robertson, but that really is beside the point.
The machine:
A generic, Pentium 4 machine, with a Linspire installation on /dev/hda, and largely unused data storage space (250GB-worth) on /dev/hdb.
LINSPIRE /boot/grub/menu.lst file:
# Generated by jiffyboot version 7.0.53. If this file is edited, the # system will stop modifying it. To allow the system to resume # management of this file, remove it and run jiffybootdefault=0
timeout=5
color cyan/green magenta/green
splashimage=/boot/grub/bootsplash.xpm.gztitle Linspire 5.0.59 on /dev/hda3
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10 root=/dev/hda3 rootdev=0x0303 ramdisk=32000 vga=0x311 splash=silent /n
video=vesafb:nomtrr video=vesafb:nomtrr jiffymount=noatime resume2=swap:/dev/hda3:0x8e0800@4096
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10.gz
# (Boot priority: 100, mounted at /)title Redetect
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10 root=/dev/hda3 rootdev=0x0303 ramdisk=32000 noresume2 redetect /n
video=vesafb:nomtrr video=vesafb:nomtrr jiffymount=noatime resume2=swap:/dev/hda3:0x8e0800@4096
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10.gz
# (Boot priority: 100, mounted at /)title Diagnostics
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10 root=/dev/hda3 rootdev=0x0303 ramdisk=32000 noresume2 single splash=0 /n
Diagnostics video=vesafb:nomtrr video=vesafb:nomtrr jiffymount=noatime resume2=swap:/dev/hda3:0x8e0800@4096
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10.gz
# (Boot priority: 100, mounted at /)
We wanted this machine to be a dual-booter, between Linspire 5.0.59 and SimplyMEPIS 6.5; so it was decided that we would go ahead and install SimplyMEPIS to /dev/hdb, with GRUB written to the MBR of /dev/hda.
The installation took less than 15 minutes, and the SimplyMEPIS installation worked like a charm.
"Stock" SimplyMEPIS 6.5 /boot/grub/menu.lst file:
timeout 15
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1gfxmenu /boot/grub/message
title MEPIS at hdb1, newest kernel
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb1 nomce quiet vga=791
boottitle MEPIS at hdb1, older kernel
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz.old root=/dev/hdb1 nomce quiet vga=791
boottitle MEPIS at hdb1, kernel 2.6.15-27-desktop
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-27-desktop root=/dev/hdb1 nomce quiet vga=791
boottitle MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
I had to let GRUB know where to find the Linspire installation, so it could be included in the boot menu, so I grabbed a line from the /boot/grub/menu.lst file that had previously been used by the Linspire installation, and dropped it into the /boot/grub/menu.lst file now being used by the SimplyMEPIS GRUB installation:
Modified SimplyMEPIS 6.5 /boot/grub/menu.lst file:
timeout 5
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1gfxmenu /boot/grub/message
title MEPIS at hdb1, newest kernel
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb1 nomce quiet vga=791
boottitle Linspire 5.0.59 on /dev/hda3
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10 root=/dev/hda3 rootdev=0x0303 ramdisk=32000 vga=0x311 splash=silent /n
video=vesafb:nomtrr video=vesafb:nomtrr jiffymount=noatime resume2=swap:/dev/hda3:0x8e0800@4096
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10.gz
# (Boot priority: 100, mounted at /)title MEPIS at hdb1, older kernel
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz.old root=/dev/hdb1 nomce quiet vga=791
boottitle MEPIS at hdb1, kernel 2.6.15-27-desktop
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-27-desktop root=/dev/hdb1 nomce quiet vga=791
boottitle MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
It should work, right?
Yeah, well, we'll come back to that point later.
Now, the majority of the time was spent checking out the new release of SimplyMEPIS, and installing a few packages, fonts and codecs, so the machine would be completely "multimedia ready".
As things went, I ran out of time and had to leave to get the kids and myself home in time to make dinner so it was, therefore, only discovered after I left the location, that GRUB wouldn't boot the Linspire installation. The machine owner couldn't access his email settings and archives and bookmarks.
GRUB was throwing ERROR 15 codes, refusing to find the Linspire installation, then looping back on the menu, but finding no background image on the second time through.
Looks like I screwed-up that one.
Various "phone-fixes" were attempted to no avail, so I scheduled-in some resolution time for the following day.
Getting myself in front of the keyboard, the next day, did me no good because I'm nobody's GRUB guru--particularly when it comes to passing parameters to what amounts to an ancient Linspire installation which is only one-step away from the days when they still used LILO.
I quickly found that I was going to have to switch the SimplyMEPIS drive into the /dev/hda position, reinstall GRUB to the MBR, and move the Linspire drive back to the /dev/hdb position. It had an MBR which was trashed by my installing the more recent SimplyMEPIS GRUB over it (What was I thinking?) the day before.
It took me a couple hours to figure out what happened, what was wrong, and what I needed to do to fix it. Many changes were necessitated by my switching drive ordering, and trying to figure out what happened to the pooch when the lights went out.
The correct (hd0,0)/boot/grub/menu.lst file is shown below, for those who might find themselves in similar straits.
The crux of the issue was this parameter to the Linspire kernel invocation:
rootdev=0x0303
Replacing the MBR on the Linspire drive made this invalid (how that is, I don't know, because it should have worked...but it just didn't) with the drive hooked up as /dev/hda, so I tried it as /dev/hdb with GRUB loading from the SimplyMEPIS drive as /dev/hda along with some significant monkeying-around that I can't recall the details of now.
After all that, I did finally get Linspire to partially boot up to the point where it was trying to mount the VFS. It then failed there, but this was progress.
Finally, I turned an eye to that parameter I mentioned, above, and changed
rootdev=0x0303
to
rootdev=0x0343
which mojo-magically took care of the issue, and gave him his Linspire back; with the newer SimplyMEPIS installation functioning properly--the idea being that he will be migrating everything away from the Linspire install to the SM 6.5 installation.
There will be a day (probably in about a month or two) when he'll call me up to format that Linspire drive and mount it up as file storage for him. I suspect that, since the multimedia rendering capabilities are far better in SimplyMEPIS than they were in Linspire 5.0, he will probably find himself amassing more music files on the system. (I told him to rip his CDs to .wav, .flacc or .ogg and not to mess around with mp3s at all. Comparing all four file formats together, on the same hardware, in the same sitting, will make this clear to anyone who places audio quality over file size.)
Correctly modified SimplyMEPIS 6.5 /boot/grub/menu.lst file:
timeout 5
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1gfxmenu /boot/grub/message
title MEPIS at hda1, newest kernel
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 nomce quiet vga=791
boottitle Linspire 5.0.59 on /dev/hdb3
root (hd1,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10 root=/dev/hdb3 rootdev=0x0343 ramdisk=32000 vga=0x311 splash=silent /n
video=vesafb:nomtrr video=vesafb:nomtrr jiffymount=noatime resume2=swap:/dev/hdb3:0x8e0800@4096
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10.gztitle MEPIS at hda1, older kernel
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz.old root=/dev/hda1 nomce quiet vga=791
boottitle MEPIS at hda1, kernel 2.6.15-27-desktop
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-27-desktop root=/dev/hda1 nomce quiet vga=791
boottitle MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
At any rate, the above file works fine, he's happy, and I'm taking notes for my future reference--and yours.
Actually, since posting the
Posts: 1634
Actually, since posting the above, I did happen to run across this.
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html
I haven't gotten deeply into it yet, but, as far as potential documentation goes, it looks promising.
"...Del mundo te vas adueñar, la música y la poesía, tus penas las podrás curar."
Try searching for "RAID" in
Posts: 2
Try searching for "RAID" in this manual. Not mentioned.
While doing a 'grub raid
Posts: 1634
While doing a 'grub raid howto' search key set on Google brings loads of worthy considerations, at this point, I do believe that lilo *is* probably easiest to deal with in some situations.
"...Del mundo te vas adueñar, la música y la poesía, tus penas las podrás curar."
This illustrates the main
Posts: 2
This illustrates the main problem I have with grub -- I just don't understand it well enough. This is especially annoying with RAID configurations. So I usually install lilo, where I have some idea of what it's doing.
Grub needs better documentation.