ichase Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 (edited) Greetings,Hope you are all doing well. Well, I used Plop Bootloader and was able to boot into my USB external drive. Plop also showed all of my OS's installed on the internal, so even though it may be a slight inconvience to have to boot a live CD in order to access all of my OSs, in the grand scheme of things, it really is not.So, figured I would start installing OSs on my other partitions on the external. 1st one I started with (Pinguy was actually the first install) was OpenSUSE. (Installed / to SDB6) I recall the LAST time I attempted to install OpenSUSE I got the same problem and ended re-installing everything. Now, the fact that Ihave good clones on all of these partitions would make this easier, I would still like to be able to fix Grub so that I can get my grub menu back up. :)I booted with my XP disk and fixed the MBR so now when I start the lappy it goes straight into XP. So I figured I could put my UE 2.8 DVD in and maybe get into a rescue mode and a terminal so that I could set my grub menu to the MBR and be back up and running. Well that did not work because when I select F4 and type rescue acpi=off It tells me kernel can't find rescue. What ever.I know that if I can just get into the Terminal in UE 2.8 which is hosting my grub (or at least it was) and edit my grub.cfg and write it to the MBR, I will be good to go. Now Parted Magic has Super Grub Disk 1 and 2 built in. Of course Disk 1 is for legacy. It did not even register that UE 2.8 was on SDA6. Now with that being said, could I go into Mandriva (Which is on SDA7) and have it take over as boot host? When I tried running SGD 2, it went through some texts, said welcome to grub and rebooted the computer never actually going into the program. Thinking I may try a fresh DL of SDB 2 and run it directly off it's own CD. Any suggestions at this point will be most appreciated. As they always are. :)All the best,Ian Edited January 7, 2011 by securitybreach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 Mark post as {Solved} or delete. I DL the SGD2 and created a bootable CD and was able to get into my grub menu and write it to the MBR. So all is well. :)Though I still say, I do not like how complicated OpenSUSE is to install. To many variables, some in which are not easy to change.Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Mark post as {Solved} or delete. I DL the SGD2 and created a bootable CD and was able to get into my grub menu and write it to the MBR. So all is well. :)Though I still say, I do not like how complicated OpenSUSE is to install. To many variables, some in which are not easy to change.IanWell glad you got it working. I used to use Suse back with 9.3 but I have tried a few times in the last few years and was not very impressed by it. Also, I marked the topic as solved since you asked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolanaj Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 (edited) Glad you solved the problem. I haven't tried Opensuse lately but I remember when I installed it years ago it completely trashed my windows partition. I had to use Partition Magic and Linux as well as reformatting with windows to fix it. I've stayed away from it since, it was a really nice looking distro at the time though and was the first one to set up my dialup Internet while installing. Edited January 7, 2011 by rolanaj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted January 7, 2011 Author Share Posted January 7, 2011 Thanks for taking care of that for me Josh. :thumbsup:rolanrj, this is my 2nd and last attempt to install SUSE, both times have resulted in MAJOR problems. Luckly, this go around due to the great people here at BATL, I have learned enough to get myself back up and running fairly quickly. :)All the best,Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amenditman Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Congrats on solving this iChase.Thanks for the after action report. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 Wow...that's a major pain...your right though, Opensuse can be a complicated install...and unless your use to their process confusing. Personally, I've had Opensuse or Suse running on a system from 8.2 and haven't had any real major issues, but the few thing I have found (at least from what I have done):1. Like Fedora, opensuse tends to lean toward bleeding edge and the older the system the less opensuse likes it.2. Any success on older systems, tended to require changing from the default LVM partition set-up to more traditional system (e.g. independent root/swap/home)3. Grub install has to be checked carefully during the install summary, if not, what you planned and what comes out just might be 2 different things.4. opensuse is by design used to develop and support the enterprise level(even their developers get miffed at all the wickets they try to hit during install) and i think that is why their install tends to appear to be so complicated.5. opensuse still uses GRUB legacy, so if your using GRUB2 (well....been there done that) For stability opensuse opted not to use GRUB2 until it becomes more mature.As far as the distro goes, IMO it is one of the best designed layouts, professional looking and very good for what it was designed to do. ..But then again I have a bias toward rpm distros ...not sure what that means... Just a few points, for what it's worth.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolanaj Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 As far as the distro goes, IMO it is one of the best designed layouts, professional looking and very good for what it was designed to do. ..But then again I have a bias toward rpm distros ...not sure what that means... unsure.gifI actually found that too when i installed it last time, my only issue was that it hosed windows completely, so I haven't installed it on another computer since. I was actually really impressed that it set up my dial up connection during install, it was the only distro that was able to do that. It would probably be fine on my PC which has only one distro on it anyway, but so far I'm pretty happy with PCLinuxOS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted January 10, 2011 Author Share Posted January 10, 2011 Good food for thought Barry.Running the live CD, I really liked Suse and was really looking forward to having available as one of my OS's. But unless I install it on the internal and have it host grub, I don't think I will be able to install it on the external. Even after I had everything back up and running, PLOP did not even recognize that Suse was on the external. It only found my Pinguy install. So SUSE is still installed on SDB6, just a matter of figuring out how to run it. When I configure my grub.cfg file, it shows it on re-boot but of course because the BIOS will not allow for USB boot, I get the error I have received before trying to select Pinguy from the menu. Can't figure out why PLOP does not show it on it's grub menu. I'm am trying to figure out what file PLOP uses as it's grub file so that mabey I could edit it as I did my grub.cfg file in UE 2.8. Always learning!! :thumbsup:All the best,Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 PCLinuxOS is a great distro too, behind Mandriva it's number 2 on the occurance list of distros I run(IMO there aren't any bad ones..just they are diiferent in aspects).....what I have found myself doing lately on multi-boot systems is using which version of grub they use rather than package manager... I have one with Opensuse 11.4 MS 6, PclinuxOS 2010.12 (with testing repos enabled) and Mandriva 2011 (Cooker) all using opensuse grub...works fine...Another with a few ubuntu children..and there collective Grub2 seem to work fine toNot sure what happend with your windows but I seem to recall that the windows partition could become deactivated during some installs/updates....it could be fixed in Yast..but Suse took a long time to explain the how to...and patch the issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 IanWhere did you install opensuse grub? I am assuming /dev/sdb6 is that correct? Usually during install in the summary you will see the bllot loader summary with MBR enabled and Dev / disabled, for your set-up I think that would be MBR idsable with / enabled..anyway...not near my system anyway..but will eyeball when I get home Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted January 10, 2011 Author Share Posted January 10, 2011 IanWhere did you install opensuse grub? I am assuming /dev/sdb6 is that correct?Barry, you are correct.Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 well opensuse installs as LVM by default..I wonder if that has anything to do with it?(or did you change it)Kind of thinking out loud here...LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted January 10, 2011 Author Share Posted January 10, 2011 well opensuse installs as LVM by default..I wonder if that has anything to do with it?(or did you change it)Kind of thinking out loud here...LOLI don't recall changing anything or having the option to change anything in regards to the logical volume manager (LVM) <---Just in case anyone reading this does not know what LVM stands for. :)So I can not confirm nor deny if I did or not. :hysterical:Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted January 10, 2011 Share Posted January 10, 2011 You should have had an option to use LVM, or create partitions with LVM being the default...it should have also told you what it did to create those partitions (any changes to what you already had)and what type it created. (at least every opensuse install I have done ,does this..having said that..it just might have blown by (if your like me) in a flurry of clicks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebrke Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 (edited) You can always go to opensuse's custom, expert install option and manually choose the partitions you want to use for /root, /home, etc., although I believe you'd have to have created them before starting the install. I've always done that to accommodate the third-party boot manager I used even before I started sharing my windows system with a linux distro. BootIt NG has its own boot menu, and I set up an entry pointing to the /root partition for my linux distro. When I install suse, I use the expert partitioner to format and mount as /root the ext3 partition I already created through BootIt, and I make sure to install grub to /root, not the MBR, and I'm good to go. EDIT: I should point out I'm not recommending my boot manager, just pointing out the existence of the custom partitioning, expert setup in the suse install, although since I use it, you can tell it's not just for experts! Edited January 12, 2011 by ebrke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted January 12, 2011 Author Share Posted January 12, 2011 (edited) Thanks Elizabeth, I'm not familiar with BootIt NG. I had Suse load to sdb6 which I set as root and I "Thought" (Key word there. ) that I made sure not to install grub to /root. I want to try again because I really was impressed with the Live CD of OpenSUSE and would like to have it as an option. I have made it a habit of not having a seperate /home partition which some will say is good and others will say is bad. :)I used the expert mode as I always do, and I remember it giving "Recommended" options of installing and remember that some I could not change. Or maybe I could and could not figure out how too. Out of all the distro's (which has not been to many) that I have attempted to install, this installation just seemed overly confusing. Especially for someone like me who is new to Linux. :)Thanks again for taking the time to respond and offer advice. Any and All is always appreciated. :)All the best,Ian Edited January 12, 2011 by ichase Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebrke Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 (edited) Thanks Elizabeth, I'm not familiar with BootIt NG. I had Suse load to sdb6 which I set as root and I "Thought" (Key word there. ) that I made sure not to install grub to /root. I want to try again because I really was impressed with the Live CD of OpenSUSE and would like to have it as an option. I have made it a habit of not having a seperate /home partition which some will say is good and others will say is bad. :)I used the expert mode as I always do, and I remember it giving "Recommended" options of installing and remember that some I could not change. Or maybe I could and could not figure out how too. Out of all the distro's (which has not been to many) that I have attempted to install, this installation just seemed overly confusing. Especially for someone like me who is new to Linux. :)Thanks again for taking the time to respond and offer advice. Any and All is always appreciated. :)All the best,IanAgain, I'm not pushing the boot manager I use. If you let grub go to the MBR, you have the chance of a problem with windows, although I haven't seen that happen in a long time with suse. If you install suse's grub to /root, you're going to have to have some means (grub from another distro install maybe) to start suse. Someone here more knowledgeable than I am about that can give you help with that, I'm sure. I was just trying to point out that if you dig deep, there are ways to tell suse's installer just which partitions you want to use for your install and where to put grub. That being said, I had a little trouble with the new way the expert partitioner in suse is handled now, and this is maybe the 8th suse install I've done over the years. EDIT: Maybe I was confused over the exactly what the problem was--maybe just ignore this post since you've solved the problem. Edited January 12, 2011 by ebrke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted January 13, 2011 Author Share Posted January 13, 2011 Again, I'm not pushing the boot manager I use. If you let grub go to the MBR, you have the chance of a problem with windows, although I haven't seen that happen in a long time with suse. If you install suse's grub to /root, you're going to have to have some means (grub from another distro install maybe) to start suse. Someone here more knowledgeable than I am about that can give you help with that, I'm sure. I was just trying to point out that if you dig deep, there are ways to tell suse's installer just which partitions you want to use for your install and where to put grub. That being said, I had a little trouble with the new way the expert partitioner in suse is handled now, and this is maybe the 8th suse install I've done over the years. EDIT: Maybe I was confused over the exactly what the problem was--maybe just ignore this post since you've solved the problem.By all means Elizabeth, I appreciate your response. Actually my problem is not solved yet. Right now I have UE 2.8 hosting grub (grub2), I think it was Barry that mentioned about Suse not playing well with Grub2.But as I always say....If there is a will, there is a way. :)Thanks again,Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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