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Using PCLinuxOS 64 Bit Grub on other Distros


Frank Woods

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Frank Woods

I am tired of fooling around with Virtual Box. I would like to install some Distros to my hard drive. Most of the ones that I have tried(All flavors of Mint) and many more have crappy looking Grub Boot Loaders . Most of them are not graphical. How can I add say Mint 14.1 and us PClos 64 bit Grub?

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burninbush

I am tired of fooling around with Virtual Box. I would like to install some Distros to my hard drive. Most of the ones that I have tried(All flavors of Mint) and many more have crappy looking Grub Boot Loaders . Most of them are not graphical. How can I add say Mint 14.1 and us PClos 64 bit Grub?

 

 

Not clear I understand your question -- but to me it parses like 'I have PCL-64 bit [which is classic grub, not grub2] and I want to add Mint14 to the choices that I see when I boot the computer'.

 

So, that's easy: just use a text editor to add the one paragraph [2 - 3 lines] into the PCL's /boot/grub/menu.lst file. It's just text, open it with kwrite or any text editor.

 

If you have not yet installed your Mint14, be SURE to inform it to do it's boot install to the partition in which you install, not to the MBR of any disk.

 

Ultimately, if you want to go completely custom login screen, then you'll need to use the grub commands to display and setup a menu. And it's worth remembering, any graphic you see on a grub background was put up by grub, not by any distro, no linux is yet running when you see that first boot screen. It is only after vmlinuz is loaded and running that you will see any output from the distro itself. (forgive me if you already knew all this)

 

Editing, look for lines like this below in your menu.lst file ...

 

 

title PCL64-2014.04 on sdb5 -- fab good, airlink

kernel (hd1,4)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb5 vga=791 acpi=on

initrd (hd1,4)/boot/initrd.img

 

Note, the 'title' line is what will be displayed on your grub menu at boot. I use it to add reminders to myself when booting one of my machines that has many distros installed. The kernel line above could be even shorter by leaving off the last two elements [vga and acpi]. The exact same statements [with correct paths for your install] would also boot a mint14 install.

 

There's another interesting grub option, after you have told distro#2 to install to its partition root:

 

title Peppermint

configfile (hd0,N)/boot/grub/menu.lst

 

which will display whatever graphics and boot options that distro#2 whould have offered if you had let it install to the disk root. Note, you may have to fiddle with the (hd0,N) bit if you boot from one disk but install to another [second] hard disk.

 

If I completely misunderstood your question, try again.

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Frank Woods
timeout 60

color black/cyan yellow/cyan

gfxmenu (hd1,4)/boot/gfxmenu

default 0

 

title linux

kernel (hd1,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=b4fea648-a11b-4f7a-9673-343add352410 quiet nokmsboot vmalloc=256M acpi=on resume=UUID=81423d3c-0352-43cb-af91-8da8c046e7ce splash=silent vga=788

initrd (hd1,4)/boot/initrd.img

 

title linux-nonfb

kernel (hd1,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=b4fea648-a11b-4f7a-9673-343add352410 quiet nokmsboot vmalloc=256M acpi=on resume=UUID=81423d3c-0352-43cb-af91-8da8c046e7ce

initrd (hd1,4)/boot/initrd.img

 

title failsafe

kernel (hd1,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=b4fea648-a11b-4f7a-9673-343add352410 quiet nokmsboot failsafe vmalloc=256M acpi=on

initrd (hd1,4)/boot/initrd.img

 

title windows

root (hd0,0)

makeactive

chainloader +1

 

So the above is what I will have to edit?

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V.T. Eric Layton

Yes, you'll have to edit your menu.lst to add the operating systems that you want to show up on the menu at system startup. You have a couple of ways to do this:

 

1) you can install the individual bootloaders on the /(root) partition of the distributions when you install them, then "chainload" them using GRUB's menu.lst.

 

or, my way (see link above)

 

2) manually add the individual distributions' partition and booting data to the menu.lst and direct load them.

 

There is a third alternative that is pretty cool...

 

Burninbush posted around here somewhere his method of actually installing GRUB on its own little partition and then setting up the menu.lst from there and booting multiple distros. AHA! Here you go... I found it --> http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?showtopic=57698entry359447

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burninbush

There is a third alternative that is pretty cool...

 

Burninbush posted around here somewhere his method of actually installing GRUB on its own little partition and then setting up the menu.lst from there and booting multiple distros. AHA! Here you go... I found it --> http://forums.scotsn...98

 

 

That works like a charm, but is not useful for a disk that has already been partitioned. I do NOT recommend resizing to create a new first partition -- not even sure that can be done. If Frank is willing to start over, then I highly recommend my scheme to any linux distro explorer.

 

But it looks like Frank already has a working menu.lst from his PCL install. @ Frank, after you get your Mint14 installed, just copy the three-liner example I put above -- fixing partition names to suit -- and it'll work.

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Frank Woods

I will be starting over as I really messed up my PC. I lost 15 GB of music, all of my documents and videos. Linux had nothing to do with this. But I don't understand your 3 liner example?

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Frank Woods

Well I have PCl 64 Installed. I think I am going to try to install Mint, I got nothing left to lose but time.

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Frank Woods

Well I sort of got it working . It had its own Grub but I could not remember what the lines were when I got into PCl. I tried the "Redo-Mbr" thing but it did not work. So I am back where I started with Windows and PClinuxOS 64

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Frank Woods

Yes , I had it so I could see its logon screen from PClos but it would not accept and keystrokes. There was a bunch of code that flew by then the login. I probably had too much code in it.

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securitybreach

I will be starting over as I really messed up my PC. I lost 15 GB of music, all of my documents and videos. Linux had nothing to do with this. But I don't understand your 3 liner example?

 

Sorry for your loss :thumbsdown:

 

Next time, backup backup backup!!!

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V.T. Eric Layton

I will be starting over as I really messed up my PC. I lost 15 GB of music, all of my documents and videos. Linux had nothing to do with this. But I don't understand your 3 liner example?

 

Oh, yeah... been here, done this. :(

 

 

 

Next time, backup backup backup!!!

 

Yup. After trashing a few partitions when installing a distro here and there, I learned this lesson, too.

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burninbush

I will be starting over as I really messed up my PC. I lost 15 GB of music, all of my documents and videos. Linux had nothing to do with this. But I don't understand your 3 liner example?

 

 

Well -- you don't really need to understand it; what I wanted you to do was to highlight the text I provided [3 lines] and then paste them into the PCL menu.lst. And then, edit correct the partition numbers to match where you actually installed your Mint distro.

 

The 'Title' line I already explained.

 

The 'kernel' line just tells grub where to find the vmlinuz of the Mint [or whatever other] distro, and then tells the kernel which is its root partition.

 

The 'initrd' line similarly tells grub where to find the initrd.img file for Mint.

 

The example I provided is stripped-down to the simplest possible grub syntax -- but it works. In the usual case, grub is only visible for a couple seconds while you select which distro choice to boot -- not much point in making it pretty.

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V.T. Eric Layton

Hi Frank,

 

It's a personal choice, of course. It just depends on your motivation/needs. If you just want to run a usable Linux on your systems somewhere for fun, then VB is fine and dandy. If you're looking to learn, then you really need to actually install Linux on a hard drive with all the risks of failure that come with that option. In my opinion, this is the best way to learn. Install it, tweak it, bend it, break it... learn how to fix it.

 

Like I said, though... it's a personal thing. Do what's best for you.

 

Later...

 

~Eric

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Frank Woods

Well I do have PClinuxOS 64 Bit installed. I just can't seem to get another distro to boot. I may try again later. Thanks for all of you guys help.

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V.T. Eric Layton

I seem to have pulled a muscle in my back helping my brother move into his new digs down here in Tampa after his recent move down from Fairfax, VA this past weekend. It only bothers me when I'm sitting at this desk hunched over this keyboard. Later on, when I can stand to sit here for a bit longer, we'll walk you though this again.

 

Until then...

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burninbush

Well I can do that by just allowing the Mint grub to be installed in SDA

 

Yes, you could, and then it would boot to Mint only - and Mint uses grub2, good luck figuring that out.

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Frank Woods

Yes, you could, and then it would boot to Mint only - and Mint uses grub2, good luck figuring that out.

 

I know, that does not work.

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Frank Woods

Well I finally got it. From PCloss I got into Mints Grub and edited the proper stuff and placed it in PClos's Grub. I put the correct info in but it made it Chainloader 2 which is fine for me. Thanks VT for all of the help.

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securitybreach

Excellent, you go it working!! I do not know a whole lot about grub as I usually set it up and do not mess with it further hence why I wasnt able to help.

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