[gentoo-user] grub: how to install new version of stage 1

[John P. Burkett]

On a x86 machine I did "emerge -D -uav world" and got a response that
read in part as follows:
 * Messages for package sys-boot/grub-0.97-r9:
 *
 * To avoid automounting and autoinstalling with /boot,
 * just export the DONT_MOUNT_BOOT variable.
 *
 * *** IMPORTANT NOTE: you must run grub and install
 * the new version's stage1 to your MBR.  Until you do,
 * stage1 and stage2 will still be the old version, but
 * later stages will be the new version, which could
 * cause problems such as an unbootable system.
 * This means you must use either grub-install or perform
 * root/setup manually! For more help, see the handbook:
 *
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10#grub-install-auto
 * To interactively install grub files to another device such as a USB
 * stick, just run the following and specify the directory as prompted:
 *    emerge --config =grub-0.97-r9
 * Alternately, you can export GRUB_ALT_INSTALLDIR=/path/to/use to tell
 * grub where to install in a non-interactive way.

After reading
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10#grub-install-auto
I did "grep -v rootfs /proc/mounts > /etc/mtab". That seems to have
produced the needed /etc/mtab file.  Now I'm confused by the part of the
manual with code listings 2.6 and
2.7 and the associated commentary.
The manual suggests doing "grub-install --no-floppy /dev/sda"
but later says "If your system does not have any floppy drives, add the
--no-floppy option to the above command to prevent grub from probing the
(non-existing) floppy drives."  My machine has a floppy drive. Should I
omit the --no-floppy option and just do "grub-install /dev/sda" ?

-John


-- 
John P. Burkett
Department of Economics
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881-0808
USA

phone [phone]