Totally lost Grub twice after much work in Kubuntu

[Poofdisk]

Yes, I moved the Boot flag around in an attempt to jolt life back into it but to no avail.

[royleith]

@ Poofdisk

As you are using BIOS/MBR/grub2 then I suggest the System Rescue CD is the way to go.

Can you use another PC to download the systemrescuecd-x86-4.7.1.iso file and burn it to a CD-R? Most OSs will do that automatically if you put a CD-R in the drive and open the .iso file in a file manager or directory window.

http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/Download

If you put the burnt rescue CD in the drive and boot up the PC, you can follow the instructions in my earlier post. Don't let it boot all the way. Catch it at the early menu screen and down-cursor to the suggested boot option. That will actually boot from the very first partition (sda1) shown in your picture without needing grub. You can then use the Terminal to run the grub install and update programs.

Using the DVD-R you used to install Kubuntu to /dev/sda1 can be used, instead. Put it in the drive and use the 'try without installing' option. Wait until you have Kubuntu running, find Terminal and repair grub.

PS I have run up to four distributions with both / and /home partitions in an extended partition (sometimes with the /home partitions all on a second HDD) with no problems. However, GPT and UEFI get away from all that Microsoft nonsense.

[jlittle]

BTW,

... You need to use sudo kate and sudo dolphin to a)...

Don't use sudo with GUI programs (like dolphin or Kate! It can result in configuration files in your home directory being owned by root, and so unwritable. For GUI programs use kdesudo instead.

Regards, John Little

[Poofdisk]

Can I run Kubuntu in a Elementary using VirtualBox?

[Qqmike]

@ royleith, Hey, I'm not trying to be difficult here , just wondering, instead of going through all that with System Rescue, why not just use Boot Repair to reinstall GRUB (used with both BIOS and UEFI systems)? It does the work for you.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
And if you are concerned about GRUB-purity issues, use BootRepair to get booted into the Kubuntu and then fix things in a purely manner (sudo grub-install && sudo update-grub).

And, if not that, if you are going to do all that work anyway with System Rescue, why not just reinstall GRUB using a chroot from the Kubuntu distro's live DVD).
Re-install GRUB2 from Live DVD/USB flash drive
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...l=1#post374017

[royleith]

@ Qqmike,

I have had this problem on and off over many years, usually as the result of reloading a Windows image. I searched everywhere for a way to boot the machine into Linux and found the System Rescue CD. It has been the answer to everything from configuring a no-OS PC, via restoring corrupt Windows files, through backing up partitions with fsarchiver and booting into HDD linux partitions. You can set up wifi and ethernet connections and boot into xorg windows at which point you have GUI text editor, Terminal, browser, partition manager, filemanager and a load of handy utilities. All the wide range of command line tools are available via Terminal. It boots much more quickly than a Kubuntu live DVD and has a light footprint.

The Rescue CD Handbook has several methods of repairing grub, all of which are horribly confusing and tend to use chowning into the hard-drive. They are not guaranteed. Once I found the boot into HDD option, I forgot about all the other methods.

Boot Repair has not been available, to my knowledge, until recently, and I have gone through three generations of Rescue CD. If you are going to burn a CD anyway, why not the Rescue CD with its wide range of useful tools? The handbook provides instructions for creating a bespoke copy and that could, I assume, include the Boot Repair tool in the xorg menus.

One thing I could add. kde-config-grub2 is available in muon. Most of it does not work because of the way Ubuntu sets up grub, but the Advanced tab gives a gui based grub repair tool. Installing it on the hard drive avoids using Terminal, but you still need sudo update-grub

[Rod J]

Cairo Dock installation culprit?

Back tracking a bit to Poofdisk's original crash in 15.10 (post #5 caught my eye): I think it may have been caused by the Cairo Dock installation. I had a similar issue when I first installed Cairo Dock in 15.10 when I noticed it wanted to install a great deal of Gnome 3 stuff (far more than I recalled it installing in 14.04). Anyway, I thought nothing of it until I rebooted.

Then I got this error: "gnome-session []: x-session-manager []: WARNING: Unable to find required component 'gnome-shell'" and another error message after that and the boot just hung completely. I couldn't figure out why it was wanting to run 'gnome-session' when here I was trying to boot into KDE?

If I recall correctly I managed to switch to another console and started uninstalling stuff including 'gnome-session' which eventually got me booting again.

What I found out after some Googling seemed to indicate that for some unknown reason (to me at least) Cairo Dock's dependencies have changed quite a bit from 14.04 to 15.10. In 15.10 it seems to want to pull in half of Gnome 3 which is ridiculous and quite unnecessary. The solution is to install Cairo Dock in the terminal with this command: sudo apt-get install cairo-dock --no-install-recommends

There was a discussion in the following Launchpad bug report which put me on the right track (especially Post #5).
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...k/+bug/1464517

[Qqmike]

@ royleith re System Rescue: Makes sense. I've known several users who consider the System Rescue a gold standard tool to have handy.

@ Rod J re Cairo: Maybe you've hit on something here.

[Poofdisk]

Rod J, I think you have it. I like Cairo but it may have reached too far for my install. I recall this kind of thing happening in some early versions of Windows. Recall when a program came with a floppy and installed itself as an independent OS on your Tandy computer with Two!! floppy bays? Anyway, that's why the guy said, "Don't do me any favors!"

[Rod J]

Yes, I do remember those days!

I had a Tandy Radio Shack TRS80 clone (called a "Dick Smith System 80"), my first PC back in 1984. I had two 5 1/4 floppy drives one of which ran LDOS I think (not MS DOS).

[Poofdisk]

I had culture shock when I walked into dispatch and saw the TRS80 computer. I said to myself, "This is going to change things quite a bit and you are way behind the power curve." Anyway, I am enjoying Elementary quite a bit and added VirtualBox 5 for Windows 8.1 but had some trouble figuring out how to obtain a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (must be in full-screen mode) so I reloaded stuff so often Microsoft now believes I am an international software smuggler. Between Wine and VirtualBox I can load a lot of programs but not all. Latest WordPerfect Office loaded just fine in VB but InDesign CS6 would not. No matter, I use the Skylake computer for much of the power programs anyway.