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switch from ubuntu back to Mandriva [solved]


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Ive decided to put Ubuntu onto a spare space alongside Mandriva 2008.0 and XP. Ubuntu installed fine, but changed the Grub screen where all boot options are listed. I would like to change it back to make Mandriva the default boot option. Also, Ubuntu's default grub screen looks really dull... What is the best way to do that?

Edited by coverup
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The easiest way would be to reinstall the Mandriva grub-bootloader using the installation media in rescue mode or - if you are already running Mandriva, using the MCC to set up the bootloader or launching from a terminal "grub-install /dev/xxx" xxx being the device where you want to install the bootloader, e.g. sda or hdc.

 

Adding Ubuntu to it is not complicated. You could e.g. mount the Ubuntu /root partition, and then copy over the Ubuntu-relevant entry from Ubuntus /boot/grub/menu.lst file over to Mandrivas /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

 

If you simply want to keep Ubuntus Grub but change the boot priority, edit the menu.lst file and edit the line "default 0" to whatever entry you want to have as default. Keep in mind that the first entry has number 0, the second entry has number 1 and so forth.

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Reinstalling grub inside Mandriva is indeed the simplest solution.

The cleanest solution is certainly using a common, small (32MB or so) ext2 partition, mounted as /boot for ALL your available Linux distros, and in which you should put the kernel and initrd images, as well as the grub binaries and configuration file. The advantage of such a solution is that only ONE instance of grub is needed. Factly, it's quite possible to do it post-install, right now, but I wouldn't recommend it BEFORE you get familiar with the grub intricacies and Linux, in general.

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Ah, if only I knew the trick about 32Mb partition before...

 

Now, about arctic's suggestion that it can be done within MCC, when I go to MCC->Boot->Setup boot system (it takes a little while until the window is populated) -> Next, then I only see the Mandriva's grub menu. Are you saying I could simply cut and paste Ubuntu's entries into "ADD" fields? Now, where do I change the faceless "linux (/sda6)" to a more friendly name like "mandriva linux", which I had before?

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Are you saying I could simply cut and paste Ubuntu's entries into "ADD" fields?
Yes, this is one possible approach.

 

Now, where do I change the faceless "linux (/sda6)" to a more friendly name like "mandriva linux", which I had before?

In the MCC. When you click on "edit entry", you will see in the new window that pops up an entry right at the top called "label" or so (sorry, my box is in german...) where you will see the name "linux". Change the name to whatever you want it to be.

 

Alternatively, edit the names in menu.lst directly with an editor as root.

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Ok, here is the entry from the Ubuntu's menu.lst. Ubuntu is on /dev/sda9, Mandriva is on /dev/sda6

 

title		   Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
root			(hd0,8)
kernel		  /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=0ca7a84f-3184-4e26-a076-855a22b8e24a ro quiet splash
initrd		  /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic
quiet

 

Next, I went to MCC -> Boot -> Set up boot system -> Add. Could somebody please help me filling out the boxes?

 

* Label: That's easy, Ubuntu 8.04

 

* Image: In the pull-down menu, i have only mandriva related ones. Should I simply type in /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic Will the boot loader understand that I am referring to the Ubuntu's /boot dir and not the Mandriva's /boot dir?

 

* Root: I don't understand what UUID=0ca7a84f-3184-4e26-a076-855a22b8e24a means. Should I simply select /dev/sda9 from the pull down menu? Besides, MCC won't let me type in anything anyway.

 

* Append: Do I put here ro quiet , or should these go elsewhere?

 

* Default: Easy, leave unchecked

 

Advanced options:

 

* Videmode: I suspect this can be left blank

 

*Initrd: Again, what do I put here, /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic from the Ubuntu's list? Mandriva shows only several Mandriva related options.

 

* Network profile: I suspect this can be left blank

 

Finally where do I put quiet from the last line?

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* Image: In the pull-down menu, i have only mandriva related ones. Should I simply type in /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic Will the boot loader understand that I am referring to the Ubuntu's /boot dir and not the Mandriva's /boot dir?
Yes.
* Root: I don't understand what UUID=0ca7a84f-3184-4e26-a076-855a22b8e24a means. Should I simply select /dev/sda9 from the pull down menu? Besides, MCC won't let me type in anything anyway.
Yes, select /dev/sda9. UUID is an alternative way of naming devices/partitions. I will not go into the details here, as it would take too long. If you want to know more about UUIDs, e.g. start reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_Unique_Identifier

 

* Append: Do I put here ro quiet , or should these go elsewhere?
Yes, they go here.

 

* Videmode: I suspect this can be left blank
Yes, it can be left blank if the default video configuration works for you.

 

*Initrd: Again, what do I put here, /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic from the Ubuntu's list?
Correct.

 

* Network profile: I suspect this can be left blank
Yupp.
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Thanks! One problem though - drakboot crashed and nothing happened :-). Now I am trying to edit menu.lst manually. Here is the Mandriva original menu.lst:

 

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=/dev/sda6 resume=/dev/sda7 acpi_slip=s3_bios acpi_osi=!Linux splash=silent vga=791
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=/dev/sda6 resume=/dev/sda7 splash=silent
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/sda6 failsafe
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

 

There is the parameter in BOOT_IMAGE=xyz in each linux entry of the list, but I don't see an equivalent in Ubunu. What am I suppose to put there? This is what I am going to insert between the last linux entry and the windows entry

 

title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
kernel (hd0,8)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic BOOT_IMAGE=???????? root=/dev/sda9 ro quiet splash
initrd (hd0,8)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic

By the way what does gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/gfxmenu do? Does this need to be changed to reflect added grub entries?

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I think the easiest way to handle these types of problems is just to chain load your original grub on ubuntu using mandriva. The syntax is pretty simple:

 

title Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
root (hd0,8)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst

 

When you select ubuntu from mandriva's grub, it will load ubuntu's grub so you will see the ubuntu grub selection screen you used to see before installing mandriva. You then select the ubuntu boot entry you want from that second grub screen.

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Yes. Whatever ubuntu boot menu you had before when you installed ubuntu will reappear when you select the ubuntu option in mandriva. Another advantage to using this method - if you update your kernel in ubuntu, it will make the usual changes to ubuntu's menu.lst so you can have the option to boot your old or new ubuntu kernel from the chain loaded ubuntu boot menu. All the boot options you have in ubuntu are preserved when you chain load. The only downside is you have to make two selections to get into ubuntu, one from the mandriva boot screen and a second one when the ubuntu boot screen comes up.

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