kwriting /boot/grub/menu.lst

[réjean]

Hi all!

I am having problems with Grub in PCLinuxOS and have to edit it's '/boot/grub/menu.lst' but each time I do so I get the following;

 

rejean@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost rejean]# kwrite /boot/grub/menu.lst
kwrite(2575)/kdeui (kdelibs): Session bus not found
To circumvent this problem try the following command (with Linux and bash)
export $(dbus-launch)
KCrash: Application 'kwrite' crashing...
KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/lib64/kde4/libexec/drkonqi from kdeinit
sock_file=/root/.kde4/socket-localhost/kdeinit4__0
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory
KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/lib64/kde4/libexec/drkonqi directly
drkonqi(2576)/kdeui (kdelibs): Session bus not found
To circumvent this problem try the following command (with Linux and bash)
export $(dbus-launch)
[root@localhost rejean]#

 

doing the following command 'export $(dbus-launch)' as suggested solves the problem but I have to do it each time. Is there a way to make it permanent?

[securitybreach]

Does pclinuxos still use grub-legacy?

[V.T. Eric Layton]

It does if he has a menu.lst to edit because GRUB2 uses menu.cfg, if I remember correctly. He would probably be OK editing in terminal with VIM or Nano. The issue is that some older KDE apps like Kwrite require dbus to be running. There's a dbus-daemon, but I don't know what enables/activates it in PCLOS.

[securitybreach]

Good point

[réjean]

Let's see if I can explain my problem in a few words or sentences.

1. I had some hardware problems (turned out the major one was the video card ) and had to reinstall just about every distro because in some distros I end up with a black screen.. So I installed an old video card but things went bad.

2. I have win xp and windows 7 on small hard drive (hda1 and hda2). I also have several Linux distros on bigger hd (sda1 OpenSuSE, sda5 Linux Mint, sda12 Mageia, sda14 PCLinuxOS, sda15 Ubuntu, etc.) with individual /home for each.

3. After I install a new OS I normally boot into Linux Mint (sdb5) which uses Grub2 and do 'grub-install /dev/hda and upgrade-grub'.

After reinstalling Mint and doing the commands I got this message;

error: symbol 'grub_term_highlight_color' not found

Entering rescue mode;

grub rescue>

4.So I thought I would reinstall PCLinuxOS and let it control the bootloader.

5.For awhile it was okay but I had to press F12 at boot time then select 'hard drive' then the small drive (hda) but not all the distros were entered and I had to set up the entries by hand but it worked for some and not for the others so I had to edit '/boot/grub/menu.lst' with kwrite.

6.I gave up and reinstalled Linux Mint with Grub2 hoping it would solve the problem..

7. so to recap. At boot time I press on F12->then on hard drives->then on the first drive and I can see the Mint Grub2 bootloader with all the distros.

8. I want to bypass everything so I can simply turn the machine on and get into PCLinuxOS automatically which is what I could do before I got the problems with the video card.

Edited July 3, 2014 by réjean

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Wow.

 

So...

 

You need to decide on two things:

 

Which distribution do you want to control the boot chores?

• if Mint w/ GRUB2, you'll need to set up that boot loader to boot in the order you want.
  
• if PCLOS w/ GRUB legacy, you'll need to manually edit menu.lst to boot how you want. (see special note)
  

Special note: MS Windows prefers to be installed on the number one partition on the number one drive. If it's not, or if you have more than one installation of Windows, it gets kinda' complicated (w/ GRUB legacy, anyway). You need to trick Windows into thinking it's installed on the 1st partition of the 1st drive by using the old "map (hd1) (hd0)" or chainload - which requires a boot loader on each partition for each OS.

 

I do believe GRUB2 is more intuitive when it comes to installing multiple-Windows and other OS's, but I never used GRUB2, so I never learned it. I believe Roger (Sunrat) or BarryB are a more versed in its operation than most others here.

 

You should consider doing what I finally did after years of multi-booting across multiple drives. I gave it all up and only run a very simple set up these days... Slackware & Win 7. That's it. Bliss!

 

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, Rejean. You have quite a complicated set up there. Stand by... other's will have suggestions. You know the drill.

[réjean]

Thanks Eric. I do have Windows which I rarely use on the small hd. Here is my fdisk -l;

 

rejean-G41MT-S2PT rejean # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4863 cylinders, total 78125000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb25cb25c

  Device Boot	  Start		 End	  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *		  63    25313279    12656608+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2	    25317376    78124999    26403812    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00011388

  Device Boot	  Start		 End	  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *	    2048    66074623    33036288   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2	    66074624   170932223    52428800   83  Linux
/dev/sdb3	   170947665  1953520064   891286200    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5	   170947728   215977859    22515066   83  Linux
/dev/sdb6	   215977923   232348094	 8185086   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb7	   232348158  1256347259   511999551    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb8	  1324382598  1396482254    36049828+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb9	  1396482318  1433319299    18418491   83  Linux
/dev/sdb10	 1433319363  1490655284    28667961   83  Linux
/dev/sdb11	 1490659328  1543669784    26505228+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb12	 1543669848  1593455219    24892686   83  Linux
/dev/sdb13	 1593455283  1686455504    46500111   83  Linux
/dev/sdb14	 1686458368  1733542019    23541826   83  Linux
/dev/sdb15	 1256347648  1275576319	 9614336   83  Linux
/dev/sdb16	 1275578368  1324382207    24401920   83  Linux
/dev/sdb17	 1733542083  1774234664    20346291   83  Linux
/dev/sdb18	 1774234728  1834799714    30282493+  83  Linux																																			 
/dev/sdb19	 1834799778  1875540554    20370388+  83  Linux																																			 
/dev/sdb20	 1875540618  1953520064    38989723+  83  Linux																																			 
																																																	  
Partition table entries are not in disk order																																							 
rejean-G41MT-S2PT rejean #   

 

I normally have Grub2 on sda and I edit it from Linux Mint. I could use Grub-legacy from PCLinuxOS because it is very pretty but whichever one I use I still get that 'error: symbol 'grub_term_highlight_color' not found ' message.

I might reinstall OpenSuSE and see if it can correct the problem but maybe I should reinstall Win XP or Windows 7 first. What do you guys think?

[réjean]

I forgot to say that about an hour ago I tried 'dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc' to no effect.

[securitybreach]

Wow, 20 partitions... I am impressed

[V.T. Eric Layton]

That must be an old EIDE drive because SATA/SCSI drives have a 15 partition limit (unless you use LVM). I remember the old days when I would have 20+ partitions on my drives with 10-15 distributions installed on them. I get a headache just thinking about it now.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Oh, Rejean...

 

Did you ever modify your GRUB on one of your distros to use fancy fonts or colors? That's what that error is telling you.

 

error: symbol 'grub_term_highlight_color not found

 

The newly installed loader is looking for something that doesn't exist on the new installation anymore, it seems.

[securitybreach]

That must be an old EIDE drive because SATA/SCSI drives have a 15 partition limit (unless you use LVM). I remember the old days when I would have 20+ partitions on my drives with 10-15 distributions installed on them. I get a headache just thinking about it now.

 

I do not thing EIDE drives went up to a terabyte...

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I didn't even notice the size of that hdd. I had 500G EIDEs. I wonder if there were 1T EIDEs. I don't know. Anyway, I'm wondering how he managed to partition past 15 on that drive.

 

Check out this old thread, Josh...

 

http://forums.scotsn...showtopic=29530

[securitybreach]

Check out this old thread, Josh...

 

http://forums.scotsn...showtopic=29530

 

Thanks Eric

[réjean]

That must be an old EIDE drive because SATA/SCSI drives have a 15 partition limit (unless you use LVM). I remember the old days when I would have 20+ partitions on my drives with 10-15 distributions installed on them. I get a headache just thinking about it now.

It is a Seagate Barracuda;http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433

and no I never modify Grub for the look or anything. Even the ones that look boring. This problem started after installing Linux Mint 17. It wasn't there before when I had a previous version. And any google search points to Ubuntu and Grub 2.02 (I think). Maybe I should remove Mint altogether maybe replace it with Arch which needs to be reinstalled and is residing on a smaller partition if I recall correctly.

[sunrat]

For your original Kwrite problem, hit Alt-F2 to bring up the Krunner box and enter

kdesu kwrite

Or just use Nano.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Yup. It's a SATA 3.0Gb/s drive. I haven't been keeping track, but I wasn't aware of a breakthrough in overcoming the SATA/SCSI 15 partition limit. I wonder if your partitioner automatically used LVM?

[réjean]

@sunrat. Thanks! It works. Saves me from all the copying and pasting I had to do.

@ Eric. It might Eric. I don't know. To be frank I had completely forgotten about the 15 partitions limit.

[burninbush]

It is a Seagate Barracuda;http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822148433

and no I never modify Grub for the look or anything. Even the ones that look boring. This problem started after installing Linux Mint 17. It wasn't there before when I had a previous version. And any google search points to Ubuntu and Grub 2.02 (I think). Maybe I should remove Mint altogether maybe replace it with Arch which needs to be reinstalled and is residing on a smaller partition if I recall correctly.

 

 

Ouch! Now I gotta tell you my rough experience with Mint17-kde. I have a well-loved install of mint14, and was sad that 15 and 16 were not happy with my onboard nvidia video adapters. So I was thrilled that 17 came right up, and decided to install it to an empty partition. I normally boot with grub old-style [either 0.97 or grub4dos].

 

So ... problem 1, it won't let me choose reiserfs as a filesystem. Dark clouds appear on horizon. Gave up and chose xfs.

 

Problem 2 is, it won't let me elect to not install a bootloader. Further, it's going to use grub2. So I decided to sacrifice one drives MBR -- I have backup copies -- and told it to use sdb, and that I normally boot from sda. At the end it had overwritten the MBR sector on =both= disks. Rescued one disk with a boot from usbstick, still haven't fixed the disk on which Mint installed grub2. Its grub.cfg file is 32kb of crazy looking text. It was successful in its grub2 install, everything on the menu works, but of course it didn't find my frugal installs. Oh well.

 

Apart from those trivial negatives, it seems to work very well as a user-only OS. They have gone even further in the direction of preventing me from logging-in as root. I predict it will not live on my system very long, there are plenty of other fish in that sea.

 

Rescue hints: I recently went through my junk drawers and found a few old 64mb and 128mb usbsticks. I used a utility that originally came from HP somehow [name is HPUSBFW.exe -- various versions found on the web] that will format any random stick =and= make it bootable to msdos. Add to that grub.exe from grub4dos.zip, and you have a bootable usbstick that boots very quickly and runs old-style grub. With that running, escape to command mode, and you can then boot most distros with it regardless of what MBR damage may have been done. HP util works fine under 64b win7pro here (run as admin), though it came from the win98 era.

[securitybreach]

So ... problem 1, it won't let me choose reiserfs as a filesystem. Dark clouds appear on horizon. Gave up and chose xfs.

 

Well development did stop after the main developer, Hans Reiser, killed his wife... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser

[ebrke]

Well development did stop after the main developer, Hans Reiser, killed his wife... https://en.wikipedia...iki/Hans_Reiser

I finally reformatted my /home last year after many years of using Reiserfs--I don't routinely format /home during an install. I just couldn't rationalize using an obsolete file system any longer. Edited July 7, 2014 by ebrke

[securitybreach]

Do not get me wrong... I loved ReiserFS and used it for many years. I finally moved to ext3 and then onto ext4 since he went to prison.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Yeah, ReiserFS was the default FS for Slackware when I first started using it. After dumbass Reiser whacked his wife and ended up in jail for life, I figured ReiserFS was done; apparently, so did Patrick Volkerding (Slackware's creator) because he soon after switched to ext3/4 as defaults. That's what I use nowadays... ext2 (for storage) ext3 or 4 for operating system.

[ebrke]

Yeah, ReiserFS was the default FS for Slackware when I first started using it. After dumbass Reiser whacked his wife and ended up in jail for life, I figured ReiserFS was done; apparently, so did Patrick Volkerding (Slackware's creator) because he soon after switched to ext3/4 as defaults. That's what I use nowadays... ext2 (for storage) ext3 or 4 for operating system.

Yep, did the same thing in openSuSE.

[réjean]

A couple of days ago I reinstalled Ubuntu and let it take control of the bootloader on MBR /dev/sda and everything is back to normal again. So the culprit all along was Mint 17. Mint 16 was fine for over a year and whenever i upgraded a distro all I had to do was to boot into Mint and do a

update/grub

 

At least this problem thought me how to use F12 when I when to boot into a CD/DVD or a USB stick. Whenever I needed to do so I thought I had to press Dell then go into the BIOS and change the 1st boot to either CD/DVD or USB/hdd, then F10 to save and blablabla but now I can just press F12 and choose to boot into whatever I want or nedd.

Thanks also to Roger for the "kdesu kwrite" command. Quite handy!

[Cluttermagnet]

My impression is that there are still a few bugs in LM 17. I like the distro a lot, nonetheless, and have installed it multiple times here. They will be aware of a goodly number of these things, and are working on them. Just today, when updating a fresh install, I saw some brand new software of priority 4, orange (priority 5, red, would be for things like new Linux kernels, usually patching newly discovered vulnerabilities). These updates were something to do with "d-bus". if I remember right. There is a glitch where LM 17 randomly launches 10 instances of the utility 'caja' upon bootup. Doesn't always happen, seems to be related somehow to which particular hardware LM 17 is living on. That bug is well known to the Mint crew...

[securitybreach]

Great rejean