[lug] grub2 boot (ubuntu 10.04)

[rm at tuxteam.de]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 03:16:52PM -0600, Davide Del Vento wrote:
> >> linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro
> >> initrd /initrd.img
> >> boot
> >>
> >> It boots fine and everything works. However I need this machine
> >> booting by itself, I cannot be there in person at each reboot.
> >
> > I haven't had to modify anything in the grub config.  There should be an update-grub command (there
> > is on Debian) that should build what you need in /boot/grub.  Try putting the defaults back and run
> > that command.
> 
> Of course I did that as first thing hours before sending the message
> to the mailing list, without any success. For sake of brevity I was
> not reporting all the things that I did and failed, but only this one
> which kind-of-succeeded. 


For whose sake? Your saving a vew keystrokes made some of use waste
their debugging skills :-) To decide what information to leave out you
pretty much have to know the solution already. 

> I was stuck with the problem of turning these
> interactive commands of grub into a suitable configuration file which
> does the same thing. And when anything goes wrong, grub stops and
> gives you the prompt, without saying *WHAT* went wrong (like LILO did
> "stopping" the print at any of the letters of the LILO word). So I'm
> trying blindfold
> 
> >> PS: I'm getting crazy, now that I was becoming familiar with grub and
> >> its menu.lsf, they come out with this crappy grub2. GRRRR I want LILO
> >> back

So install it: it's an a repository nearby.
http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=lilo

> > I never used grub much because it didn't support /boot on LVM.  grub2 is much better than LILO.
> 
> Much better at what? Using different fonts? Better highlight colors?
> Displaying splash screens? Theme
> http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Theme-file-format.html
> ? User Interface
> http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Interface.html ? Or
> maybe the terrific troubleshooting documentation
> http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Troubleshooting.html
> ?
> Well, when grub will be able to play youtube on its (currently)
> useless prompt, then it'll be "much better".

Now, don't make yourself a fool. With a f**ked up lilo your pretty much
stuck. With gru(2) you can interactively debug all sorts of boot
problems. Not to mention RAID support, support for different file
systems, different operating systems etc. I've successfully restored
systems with just a remote (serial) console and grub, something I never
managed with lilo. I still remember those phone calls " .... o.k., now
what does the screen say  .. hmm, L I, o.k. now reset that box and, oh,
damn, I'll be there in five hours ..". Thanks, LILO is pure nostalgia, 
but I wouldn't dare to run my servers with it.
 
> Now, its only useful functionality is booting the OS, and it's failing
> in my case. On the other hand LILO was dead-simple: excellent
> documentation, single configuration file, installable from live system
> without the pain of doing chroot. 

??? I never chrooted to install grub. What documentation _did_ you read?

> Its only limitation was with large
> disks you had to have the kernel in the first (small) partition, but
> that's never been a problem: once you understand it, the workaround
> its straightforward. At least for me, it might be that the hw support
> of strange BIOS, LVM or other server stuff I don't even know they
> exist is actually better... But not on the desktop.

So you're that "average desktop user guy". Nice to meet you. 
And I'm glad too hear that you guys finally settled on 500 Mb harddisks,
BIOS with APM and ext2 file systems :-)
Unfortunately, my users are multimedia artists with terrabyte disk, and
they insist on RAID systems for speed and reliability, and all those
weired file systems ...
I'm very sorry to hear that you're having problems with grub2 (or your
recent install attempts (I'm not too happy about ubuntu's upgrade path)
and I'd be happy to drop by and help you, but I'm afraid the drive would
be too long :-)

Cheers, Ralf Mattes