Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

puhhhhhhhhhhh!

Well, it's different ....

Here's Qqmike's Grub 2 Bible: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3106368.0

didn't see this post, let me look here. The other partitions appear OK, which is the important thing

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

Hmmmm -- this doesn't look like the plan:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 76662179 38331058+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 76662180 80035829 1686825 82 Linux swap / Solaris

is that really all there is on /dev/sdb? There were supposed to be 3 partitions there -- I wonder what happened to the third one?

But, that should not necessarily stop it from booting.

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

Hmmmm -- this doesn't look like the plan:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 76662179 38331058+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 76662180 80035829 1686825 82 Linux swap / Solaris

is that really all there is on /dev/sdb? There were supposed to be 3 partitions there -- I wonder what happened to the third one?

But, that should not necessarily stop it from booting.

I noticed that. I think the last go thru I left off home and just put everything in /.

If we can get it to install at all I can go back and fix it.

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

It's no disaster to put the entire filesystem on /.

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

It's no disaster to put the entire filesystem on /.

right

no reference in that guide to 'grub rescue>' and the regular grub commands do not seem to be present execpt ls

I guess I'll google it.

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

Despite our best analytical efforts, it is possible that Grub is seeing /dev/sda differently than Linux. It happens -- especially around SATA/IDE mixtures. For this reason, it might be worth your while, if all else seems to fail, to try different (hdx,1) combinations with Grub. It could see that Linux drive as (hd2,1) for all I know.

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

Despite our best analytical efforts, it is possible that Grub is seeing /dev/sda differently than Linux. It happens -- especially around SATA/IDE mixtures. For this reason, it might be worth your while, if all else seems to fail, to try different (hdx,1) combinations with Grub. It could see that Linux drive as (hd2,1) for all I know.

yes doing that now. so far no joy. Very limited command subset. So far only ls and set root=

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

I think this is the relevant section:

The GRUB prompt grub> -- What to do with it
=> Getting information and booting an OS

You may get the GRUB prompt grub> in three ways:

> "c" key: You re-boot and upon seeing the boot menu, press the "c" key to get the grub>. (Or Control+c at the Edit mode menu.) (By pressing the ESC key, you get back to the boot menu.)
Or:
> No boot menu! Perhaps, you re-booted your PC and didn't see any boot menu but instead got dropped to the GRUB 2 prompt: grub>.
Or:
> You get a grub> when re-booting using your own GRUB 2 flash drive (which is what is usually supposed to happen!).

From the grub> prompt, you may be able to issue commands to
help you gather information about your drives
or
boot your computer.

Use these resources:
SECTION 4 Special Topics, the subsection
"4 ways to boot an OS" -- direct booting configfile, symlinks, chainloader
SECTION 4 Special Topics, the subsection
"How to get information about your drives and devices"
=> In particular, take special note of the ls command and the use of TAB completion.

Example Booting using symlinks; and using the ls command

grub>
Use the ls command to see how GRUB 2 sees your drives and partitions:
grub>ls
From the output, you may decide to use ls again, this time listing files in certain directories.
For example, to investigate (hd0,8), you can list the files under the root directory of (hd0,8), like this:
grub>set root=(hd0,8)
grub>ls /
And then to see the kernel(s) under /boot,
grub>ls /boot
Or, if you do
grub>ls (hd0,8)
you'll get the filesystem type and UUID.
Another way to see what's under the root:
grub> ls (hd0,8)/
(note the slash, no spaces)

Suppose you see or confirm that the OS you want to boot is on (hd0,8) (= sda8).
Then, you might try to boot that OS using symlinks like this:
grub>set root=(hd0,8)
grub>linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda8 ro quiet splash
grub>initrd /initrd.img
grub>boot

But what if you can't remember the kernel options ro quiet splash ?
Then this way will also work:
grub>set root=(hd0,8)
grub>linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda8
grub>initrd /initrd.img
grub>boot

(The read-only option, ro, is important, but it is a default option if not specified directly. Thanks goes to dibl for this information.)

Example If you need to re-boot or shut down the PC
To reboot, get the GRUB 2 prompt by pressing "c" key, and then
grub>reboot
To shut down
grub>halt

Example Chainloader
Suppose you had previously installed GRUB 2 to the boot sector of the (hd0,8) partition containing your OS. (You would have done that using sudo grub-install /dev/sda8) Then you may boot that OS using chainloader as follows:

grub>set root=(hd0,8)
grub>chainloader +1
grub>boot

Or,
grub>chainloader (hd0,8)+1
grub>boot

(NOTE about using the boot command When booting at the grub> prompt, you must use the boot command to make it go. However, in the configuration file /boot/grub/grub.cfg, you do NOT need to use the boot command--it is implied there.)

There are only 3 possibilities on your system:

(hd0,1)
(hd1,1), or
(hd2,1)

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

Prompt is grub rescue> not grub>

I tried set root=(hdx,x) for each choice. ls /boot always returns error: unknown filesystem

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

trying to reinstall grub2 from livecd per here: http://grub.enbug.org/Grub2LiveCdInstallGuide

[dibl]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

I don't have a better idea .... :P

[Qqmike]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

My how-to tells you how to re-install GRUB 2 from a Live CD WITHOUT having to chroot.
Sometimes I wonder why I write these darned things.


>>> You better check those cables, real good; tighten both data and power cables to/from the HDDs.

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

My how-to tells you how to re-install GRUB 2 from a Live CD WITHOUT having to chroot.
Sometimes I wonder why I write these darned things.


>>> You better check those cables, real good; tighten both data and power cables to/from the HDDs.

haha ,looking there now. tell me though, if sda1 is my windows partition and is marked boot, and sdb is my linux partition, which one does grub go in?

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

My how-to tells you how to re-install GRUB 2 from a Live CD WITHOUT having to chroot.
Sometimes I wonder why I write these darned things.


>>> You better check those cables, real good; tighten both data and power cables to/from the HDDs.

you say install grub to mbr. where is mbr? is it in first partition ( sda1 ) or linux partition sdb1, there is no instruction how to install to mbr!

[aiiee]

Re: Installing Kubuntu 9.10 over old Mandriva distro

My how-to tells you how to re-install GRUB 2 from a Live CD WITHOUT having to chroot.
Sometimes I wonder why I write these darned things.


>>> You better check those cables, real good; tighten both data and power cables to/from the HDDs.

you say install grub to mbr. where is mbr? is it in first partition ( sda1 ) or linux partition sdb1, there is no instruction how to install to mbr!

gone so quick...