From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1ODAHt-0008JX-HS for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 May 2010 01:51:49 -0400 Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=42652 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1ODAHq-0008IN-Ad for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 May 2010 01:51:47 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ODAHp-0003Dy-57 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 May 2010 01:51:46 -0400 Received: from mail-yw0-f197.google.com ([209.85.211.197]:56661) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ODAHp-0003Df-2G for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 May 2010 01:51:45 -0400 Received: by ywh35 with SMTP id 35so195506ywh.24 for ; Fri, 14 May 2010 22:51:43 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=+erzhUHHkz8U60qjusFNG/ViZEApmgCGayPm9bBqHaI=; b=CIzqPNWRWjoaT3L3IDzAb3JyYQr8BRUZ1lHX3XY0tRQmShfEHBXxL3yxTMA7QoMpU8 ye8Js0iu9r3zJvm5L4qyO0PrhTldT2DMUede111EQAnzS0kicChJ2DYEaIWahgAiG8w6 wgAU3ktZXWhUmzmfAgoFpnvXQFxsgZiJcS5qs= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=TZ8jewv/sNs0vqC4TbZp+dZ/+0TAyfYMSyeX/XrDN/Y6n6kwdgniEKq0PA1kRjpJbp SOWaaUcS9uFWGKbUsQfAElExeeeX9qA7dlXF41fmPpQuX7l4dXRpBoXLAW5pWbnH2g2Z Dq+oboUBc1HZ/QECBff/OZXCJur5Rcy44ZCSY= Received: by 10.151.5.9 with SMTP id h9mr2989516ybi.403.1273902703660; Fri, 14 May 2010 22:51:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.0.75] (cpe-24-174-180-111.satx.res.rr.com [24.174.180.111]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id p5sm24326771ybe.12.2010.05.14.22.51.42 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Fri, 14 May 2010 22:51:42 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4BEE366D.5080400@gmail.com> Date: Sat, 15 May 2010 00:51:41 -0500 From: Bruce Dubbs User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080722 SeaMonkey/1.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: The development of GNU GRUB References: <20100514221332.366ff2a8@svelte> In-Reply-To: <20100514221332.366ff2a8@svelte> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) Subject: Re: grub2 back to lilo ? X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 15 May 2010 05:51:47 -0000 Colin D Bennett wrote: > Perhaps instead of pre-generating the entire GRUB configuration > (e.g. from a particular Distro like Ubuntu 9.10) things could be > inserted into the main grub.cfg at GRUB boot time. > > Here's just a portion of what Ubuntu 10.04 puts in the generated > grub.cfg (of course with a stern warning not to hand modify the file): The warning is a bit too strong. It should be more like "Don't modify by hand unless you know what you are doing." I personally think that grub-mkconfig goes too far. At least the distros go too far in completely overwriting grub.cfg. They make assumptions that the users don't know what they're doing. That is not always true. If there is an existing grub.cfg, the user should at least be given a prompt that grub.cfg is going to be overwritten and given a chance to bail out. > ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### > menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-22-generic' --class ubuntu --class > gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { recordfail > insmod ext2 > set root='(hd0,3)' > search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set > 534672c7-9930-407e-a13d-66a8e873a842 linux /vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic > root=UUID=a5c8657b-e206-47d5-8cc2-30cc6cbfc77e ro quiet splash > initrd /initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic > } > ### etc. etc. > > > Now what if specific OS parts could be separated out into another file, > which could be referred to by GRUB at boot time. Something like: > > --- grub.cfg > > # General settings > set timeout=10 > set root='(hd0,3)' > > # OS-specific parts > include ubuntu-10.04.cfg > include macos.cfg > include windows_xp.cfg This is a reasonable thing to do, but where are the include files found? I would suggest grub/config.d/ Is there anything that goes in these include files other than menuentries? One problem is that many distros install in one partition, including /boot. You then have the same problem of having to access another partition of various types (reiser, ext4, jfs, xfs, etc) on possibly a different drive to find the other /boot partitions. If we can educate user and distros to always have a dedicated small /boot partition, then there are several good options. -- Bruce