Re: [gentoo-user] GRUB w/ external drive (was UUID)

[Anthony E. Caudel]

Josh Cepek wrote:
> Anthony E. Caudel wrote:
>> Michael Schmarck wrote:
>>> · Anthony E. Caudel <tony.caudel@×××××××××.net>:
>>>
>>>
>>>> I have noticed in some distros (namely Ubuntu) that the fstab uses
>>>> UUID's rather than /dev references.  Is this a better way?
>>>>
>>>> Does it eliminate the problem of /dev references changing when
>>>> another drive, i.e., an external USB drive, is plugged in?  The
>>>> /dev references may change but the UUID's in fstab wouldn't, would
>>>> they?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Correct. UUIDs are universally unique (as the name already
>>> "suggests" *g*)
>>> and thus, there cannot be a clash.
>>>
>>> Michael Schmarck
>>>
>> Any chance that GRUB will ever use these?  I have a sata hd carrier
>> and when I reboot with it plugged in, grub sees the disk order
>> differently and gives me problems (I either have to get a grub
>> command line and boot manually or use a Grub boot floppy).
>
> As long as your BIOS is passing off control to the correct drive when
> both are plugged in a boot, what about using GRUB's fallback feature?
> Say your bootable partition is normally (hd0,0), but with your
> external drive plugged in the proper partition becomes (hd1,0)
> instead.  You can duplicate your GRUB config with (hd1,0)  for the
> root entry and specify that as a fallback option.  Then as long as
> GRUB gets control your system is still bootable.
>
> If the BIOS is trying to boot off the removable drive, I suppose you
> could install GRUB on it too with a similar setup, but that obviously
> doesn't scale well beyond a single computer with a known boot
> configuration.
>
Interesting!  This Fallback feature of GRUB bears investigation.  Thanks.

Tony

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