From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1GQkBP-00071n-4k for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:31:07 -0400 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1GQkBN-0006yQ-JT for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:31:05 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1GQkBL-0006tV-Kh for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:31:05 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GQkBL-0006sx-B6 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:31:03 -0400 Received: from [199.232.41.67] (helo=mx20.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA:32) (Exim 4.52) id 1GQkF4-0002wN-UZ for grub-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:34:55 -0400 Received: from [192.31.106.7] (helo=mailgw1a.lmco.com) by mx20.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1GQU5d-0006II-7D for grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Sep 2006 15:20:05 -0400 Received: from emss07g01.ems.lmco.com (relay5.ems.lmco.com [166.29.2.16])by mailgw1a.lmco.com (LM-6) with ESMTP id k8LJJom7000390for ; Thu, 21 Sep 2006 13:19:50 -0600 (MDT) Received: from CONVERSION-DAEMON.lmco.com by lmco.com (PMDF V6.3-x3 #31239) id <0J5Y00E01J126D@lmco.com> for grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Sep 2006 13:19:50 -0600 (MDT) Received: from [134.5.170.213] by lmco.com (PMDF V6.3-x3 #31239) with ESMTP id <0J5Y009ANJ0SXR@lmco.com> for grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Sep 2006 13:19:40 -0600 (MDT) Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 15:22:54 -0400 From: Damon Register To: grub-devel@gnu.org Message-id: <4512E68E.1030306@lmco.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 (Windows/20060719) Subject: when is menu.lst read in grub process X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GRUB 2 List-Id: The development of GRUB 2 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 12:31:05 -0000 After a while of Googling, reading grub documentation and struggling to understand some of grub, I am still stuck. I have found in my own life that understanding how something works is very important in dealing with problems when they occur. AT this point I don't have any specific problems with grub, I just want to better understand the grub process. I suspect I am not the only one who has these kinds of questions and I am hoping that this might be used to add some things to the grub faq http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-legacy-faq.en.html 1. am I correct in understanding that menu.lst and grub.conf are really the same thing? Did menu.lst evolve into grub.conf? 2. what is a high level overview of the sequence for a simple boot sequence? Am I correct in understanding that it goes something like this? a. stage1 is in the MBR and is the first thing seen at startup b. stage1 contains a pointer to stage2 which is in the filesystem 3. Just where does the menu.lst fit into the grub sequence? At what point is it read? 4. is any part of the menu.lst read and inserted into either stage1 or stage2 during the installation of grub? 5. are there any changes to menu.lst that require a re-installation of grub? 6. at http://www.freeos.com/articles/3482/ I read While LILO requires the physical location of the kernel on your drive, GRUB does not. Even the latest filesystem ReiserFS is supported. This means that you don't have to re-install GRUB every time you make a change to the config file or install a new kernel. Is that true? Does that mean the answer to my question 5 is no? Damon Register