Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: walt <w41ter@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-user] Re: [cookbook] grub2 for idiots like me PART 2
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2011 17:02:16
Message-Id: ihkb6s$fg$1@dough.gmane.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-user] [cookbook] grub2 for idiots like me by walt
1 On 01/23/2011 02:28 PM, walt wrote:
2 > Okay, I genuinely have grub2 installed and doing exactly what it's
3 > supposed to do: boot your machine using only partition LABELS, not
4 > device names/numbers...
5
6 If you got through part 1 you should have all the files you need to
7 install grub2 to your drive's boot block -- that's the part that is
8 potentially dangerous, so practice installing to a USB thumb drive
9 *before* you try it for real.
10
11 All of my USB thumb drives were formatted FAT16 at the factory, and
12 grub2 (being a bit of a pig) won't fit in a FAT16 partition table.
13
14 The answer is to reformat the drive to FAT32 or ext2, or you can use
15 a tool like gparted to shrink the FAT16 fs and create a new very tiny
16 partition for ext2. Even 3MB is big enough to hold grub -- the size
17 of the file system isn't important -- it's the partition table that's
18 too small in FAT16.
19
20 Assume you have the ext2 partition of the thumb drive mounted on
21 /mnt/floppy, for example, and the thumb drive is /dev/sdc.
22
23 For the actual install you need to be root because you will be
24 writing to the device as well as the ext2 fs on the device.
25
26 # mkdir -p /mnt/floppy/boot/grub
27 # /home/walt/sbin/grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/floppy/boot/ /dev/sdc
28
29 That second step will write the actual grub2 boot block to the thumb
30 drive, as well as copying lots of grub modules to /mnt/floppy/boot/grub
31 from /home/walt/lib/grub/i386-c.
32
33 All of those grub 'modules' contain the actually code that does things
34 like print the boot menu on your screen and accept keystrokes from
35 your keyboard, search for partition LABELs, UUIDs, display boot splash
36 screens, play idiotic tunes, load custom fonts and fancy colors, and
37 tons of other stuff you won't ever want if you're still sane.
38
39 That should be enough to let you boot into the grub2 shell from your
40 thumb drive, assuming you set your BIOS to allow it.
41
42 Just like legacy grub, the grub2 command shell will always show you
43 what you can type next if you hit the tab key -- and there is quite
44 a long list.
45
46 The important commands to learn are 'ls', 'search', 'probe', 'help',
47 and 'linux'. That 'linux' command is what actually loads your kernel
48 from the /boot partition after you have located it with the search
49 and (possibly) the probe commands.
50
51 Use the help command and the tab key whenever you don't know what to
52 do next. You'll pick it up very quickly that way -- far faster than
53 trying to read any of the incomplete documentation.
54
55 One very clueful tool is the brand new utility 'grub-menulst2cfg' which
56 you should find in your ~/bin directory. Running that on your existing
57 /boot/grub/menu.lst will show you the equivalent commands for your new
58 /boot/grub/grub.cfg file. Very neat, and isn't included in the current
59 stable grub-1.98.
60
61 Once you play with the grub2 command shell you will easily see how to
62 use the same commands in grub.cfg because the syntax is the same.
63
64 Next time I'll explain how to use GPT (GUID Partition Table) to let
65 your kernel find and mount your root partition using its UUID without
66 an initrd. Very nifty!

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