How to triple boot XP, Ubuntu & PCLOS?

I want to look at it myself in VirtualBox, but it may be Monday before I get time for that.

 

Oh..Thanks for that. I wil be really thankfull if you can reproduce same scenario. I have no hurry. Take your time.

 

This is an interesting thread - I still have a long way to go in understanding Grub2.
Anyway my 2 cents worth:-

Default settings would install legacy grub to mbr overwriting Ubuntu's Grub2
which you say was also installed using the default settings. Therefore the boot-loader is only seeing Win7 and PCLOS.


Am I right ?

Have a look .. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1317939

 

This morning I woke up really early and I found time to experiment...

I have triple boot with GRUB2 working in a VM.

1. first I installed ReactOS, only because that saved me installation time. It installs in the first primary partition with FAT32 file system.
2. I installed an older Sidux with grub in /dev/sda2 mounted as /boot.
3. I installed Kubuntu 9.10 from the liveCD with defaults, like ext4 for the root file system.

Then you will find out that GRUB2 shows both Ubuntu AND PCLOS, but not Windows.
I had to create a text file in /etc/grub.d with the name of 10_reactos and the following content

I also had to make this text file executable with chmod +x 10_reactos
Then I had to run update-grub to recreate a new menu.
(source: Tip: Windows XP/Vista does not boot from GRUB2 or GRUB-PC)

Et voila:

 

Jolly nice wilbertnl !
Only thing is you have to first get into Reactos grub menu and then Reactos Win (Ldr)
to get to Windows because 10_custom only sees Linux OS's. Maybe a user custom
entry in 40_custom will show Windows in Grub2 ?

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0

menuentry "Windows" {

set root=(hd0,1)

chainloader +1

}

Regards

 

I'm not sure that I understand your suggestion, Ocky. I just tested it with selecting reactos (top of menu) and I get the graphic desktop of reactos.
When Aigle installs Windows XP, he won't get this second boot menu.

But the point that I want to make is that GRUB2 does find PCLOS when it's installed in the right order. First PCLOS and then Ubuntu.

 

Grub 2 reminds me of Lilo, ugly ... Anyhow, I'll start exploring this thingie and bake a tutorial ...
Mrk

 

Hi, you will see that in my case, I installed exactly as u suggested but after i finished, GRUB2 is finding all enteries, Windows, PCLOS and Ubuntu. ( In ur case it did not find ReactOS)

My results were different also in the respet that it was able to boot Ubuntu and Windows but on selecting PCLOS it gave an error. See my screenshots in post# 24.

 

It seems not ugly.

http://grub.gibibit.com/

 

Ok, my experiment continues...

Anyone can answer two Qs pls:

1- How can I dictate Ubuntu to install legacy GRUB instaed of Grub2?

2- How can i chainload Ubuntu in PCLOS Grub menue here?

View attachment 213543
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Thanks

 

Are you able to boot from floppy or from USB?
If that is the case, than you might consider to boot from such device to get into PCLOS?
You could install grub legacy on a floppy.

 

Will try SuperGrub disk but I doubt it will work as the boot entery is there but when choosen it points to some error.

 

Aigle, would using Wubi an option for you?
It means that you install Ubuntu in a virtual disk on the Windows partition. When you boot Windows, you will see a menu with two options: Windows or Ubuntu.
This does NOT rely on GRUB, and it might solve your problem, because you can use the GRUB from PCLOS.

Perhaps not an elegant solution, but it gives you a way to test both distro's.

What do you think?

 

Question #1; If there is a way to do this during install, I haven't found it.
Question #2: If you've done as I suggested and installed grub2 in the boot sector of the Ubuntu partition, then you need to add the following entry to the menu.lst file in the /boot/grub folder of the PCLos partition.

Code:

title		Chainload into GRUB 2 (on /dev/sd##)
root		(hd#,#)
kernel		/boot/grub/core.img  
savedefault
boot

If the Ubuntu partition is sda3 then:

Code:

root   (hd0,2)

 

Hi lewmur! thanks a lot for your reply. I failed on everything else. Now I will try as you suggested with primary partitions and will see how it goes.

Thanks

 

If you install Ubuntu before PCLos, and put its grub2 in its boot sector, then install PCLos with grub going to the MBR, there is a good chance you won't have to create the menu.lst entry. PCLos should do it for you.

 

Actually I can,t control Ubuntu, no option. PCLOS however gives u option.

 

Aigle, I have tried several scenario's, with Windows 2000 first, then PCLOS and finally Kubuntu.
I do get a similar error message as in your #24 post, I tried to modify grub.cfg, but so far I can't get this working. PCLOS doesn't boot from GRUB2.

 

Hi, thanks for the help. let,s see how it goes. I wil try as lewmur suggested.

BTW PCLOS doesn,t even ecognize older ubuntu version.

 

Did you try adding pclinuxos like this:

Create 11_pclinuxos or something, which includes (similar to your win case):

#! /bin/sh -e
echo "Adding pclinuxos" >&2
cat << EOF
menuentry "pclinuxos" {
set root=(hdx,y)
linux /boot/vmlinuz-whatever ...
initrd /boot/initrd-whatever ...
}
EOF

Then update-grub?

Did you also try locating ext32 before set command:

insmod ext2
set root=(hdx,y) ...

You can't edit grub.cfg even if you chmod the attributes ...
I'll see if I can find a way to do it ... baking the tutorial, by the way ...

Cheers,
Mrk

 

OK I'm not a Linux guru and you know that, but quite frankly I don't understand what the problem is ..
If PCLOS is installed to the MBR, Grub 0.97 should pick up on the Windows XP existing installation, overwrite its bootloader and present you with a chainload Grub menu entry for Windows. That's how mine was.
Then just install Ubuntu's bootloader (Grub2) to the partition boot sector (/) - not to the MBR.
Once done just edit PCLOS menu.lst by adding a chainloader entry for Ubuntu.
It doesn't matter that PCLOS is ext3 and Ubuntu is ext4, nor does it matter that Ubuntu is Grub2 and PCLOS is Grub 0.97. (Unless of course PCLOS uses some other bootloader).
I suppose you could also use a symlink for booting Ubuntu.
I would really like to know why you think this method will not work.

Note: It makes no difference to Ubuntu whether it is installed in primary or logical partitions
If there are already three primary partitions will be forced to make an extended partition and install Ubuntu in logical partitions.

 

It worked. Thanks lewmur.

Thanks to all others too.

I wanted to do this time with all primary partitions. I installed Win 7, then deleted its OS partition( as In needed 3 more pri partitions for swap, ubuntu and PCLOS) and just left the booot loader partition( that was enough to know whether windows bootloader will work or not). Then made three more primary partitions. Installed ubuntu and then PCLOS. Add chainloader entery for ubuntu and now i get options to boot into PCLOS or Windows boot loader or ubuntu via first screen. If I choose ubuntu then its grub 2 menue appears, again showing ubuntu or Win7 options. All working fine.

Will try it now with logical partitions so that I can go into Win7 as well.

 

That's great news, Aigle!

Soon you will be able to report to us your comparison between Ubuntu and PCLOS.

And you are having a busy time ahead, because it's the release season out there: Mandriva, OpenSuSE (tomorrow!), Fedora (next week), and that's just a few items from distrowatch.com...

Congrats on Triple Boot!

 

Yes. And thanks for your help too.

I am liking ubuntu more i think. I guess it wil be my primary linux OS.Only thing i don't like about it is that it's a bit slow, slower than XP and even win 7 i think. Wish they can make it fast atleast like XP.

I love compiz themes and desktop effects that are working evening with an old integrated graphics on my laptop that is not able to run even aero. It's amazing indeed.

 

Slower than Windows 7?, how much RAM do you have? Maybe it's worth to look at Xubuntu. You can even install it in Ubuntu, it's available as package. look for xubuntu-desktop.