grub .97 vs grub 2

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by lurningcerv, Aug 16, 2014.

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  1. lurningcerv

    lurningcerv Registered Member

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    Grub 2.02 beta installed with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and I have had a lot of trouble with it. I find it difficult to control the boot process with it. Ubuntu is installed on its partition and it works when I can boot it, but the Grub that came with it is so unreliable that I can't boot it consistently. I'm looking for a boot manager that allows me maximum control of how my computer boots. I would like to be able to manually boot from the Grub command line in addition to the normal menu method. Is there any reason I shouldn't use Grub .97? How do I install Grub .97 or another version on a machine that currently runs only W7?
     
  2. Nebulus

    Nebulus Registered Member

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    You can install Grub .97 or Grub 2.00 (I never tried a latter version) on a dedicated partition. This way, even if your Linux distro puts another bootloader on the distro's partition, you can still boot your computer.
     
  3. lurningcerv

    lurningcerv Registered Member

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    So I'm guessing that you would make a tiny partition - say 512kb - that just has /boot/grub. You would make it the boot partition, and then grub would run directly from the BIOS and from there you could boot whatever operating system you want?
     
  4. Nebulus

    Nebulus Registered Member

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    Basically, yes, but there is a bit more complicated than this. First, you create a small ext2/3 partition (64 or 128 MB), then you boot a LiveCD that has the desired GRUB version. After that you need to install GRUB to that partition you created (using grub-install and specifying where you want to store the files with the --boot-directory parameter - at least for 2.00). Your work is not over at this point, because you will need to create a grub.cfg file with your boot options.

    This is a short version of what you need to do, you will need more documentation though in order to make it work to your liking. And of course, you need to be careful not to overwrite your data in the process...
     
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