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On Wednesday 18 July 2007, Stroller wrote: |
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> On 18 Jul 2007, at 13:35, Etaoin Shrdlu wrote: |
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> > ... |
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> > You can get everything at once and in the same place using the |
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> > online docs: |
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> > |
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> > http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html |
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> |
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> This manual is very excellent. |
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> |
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> I believe you can also get it in PDF format - I printed it out over 3 |
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> years ago and still occasionally refer to it. How I miss my former |
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> employers' printer which would fold & stable paper to give A4 & A5 |
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> booklets. |
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> |
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> The GRUB manual is as good as lots of books you'd pay $$$ for. |
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|
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Yes, it is good documentation, in that everything is there - complete |
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docs are a rare thing these days. But few people that I've come across |
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thought to check the info pages and get it. |
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|
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> >> And they are also written with the assumption that the reader |
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> >> understands the confines a boot loader has to work in. |
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> |
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> I don't know. I think the overview is pretty clear <http:// |
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> www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Overview>, and leads into |
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> the remainder of the documentation quite well. |
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|
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Well there's at least two people who know how boot loaders work. But |
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it's not an easy concept to grasp for the average person. I get a feel |
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that you are not an average person so your impressions are not valid |
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for them. The big stumbling block is getting people to grasp that grub |
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is not an OS, it's not a linux app as linux is not in memory yet. And |
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yet, it can still read files and dirs that linux put there, and it's |
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config file read at run time is a linux file. It's enough to make the |
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average person's head spin (and does) - it can easily take two hours |
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for me to get a class full of reasonably bright Windows techies to |
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grasp why you use |
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kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz-<version> <options> |
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with a separate boot partition, and |
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kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-<version> <options> |
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when /boot is not a separate partition. |
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|
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Then there's the bit about grub being able to load linux and |
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Multiboot-compliant kernels natively, but Windows and others must be |
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chainloaded... |
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|
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None of this means that the grub docs are poor - it's just that |
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bootloaders are tricky beasts to grasp and the docs are correspondingly |
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hard to write so that Joe Average User gets it all first time through |
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|
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-- |
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Optimists say the glass is half full, |
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Pessimists say the glass is half empty, |
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Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be? |
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|
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za |
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+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five |
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-- |
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gentoo-user@g.o mailing list |
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