[PLUG] Grub fails. Grrrr.

[John Jason Jordan]

On Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:01:23 -0700 (MST)
Carlos Konstanski <ckonstanski at pippiandcarlos.com> dijo:

> On Thu, 26 Nov 2009, Scott Garman wrote:
> 
> > Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:49:00 -0800
> > From: Scott Garman <sgarman at zenlinux.com>
> > Reply-To: "General Linux/UNIX discussion and help;	civil and on-topic"
> >     <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
> > To: "General Linux/UNIX discussion and help;	civil and on-topic"
> >     <plug at lists.pdxlinux.org>
> > Subject: Re: [PLUG] Grub fails. Grrrr.
> > 
> > John Jason Jordan wrote:
> >> My guess is that Grub 2 did install, but incompletely. Grub 1.5 failed
> >> because it detected Grub 2.0 already installed. I installed LILO to
> >> sda1, not sda, think that doing so would make it easier to install Grub
> >> later. But LILO doesn't start if there is something in the MBR. That is
> >> just my WAG.
> >
> > I believe the PC BIOS looks at the MBR of the first disk, not the first
> > partition on the first disk. So you needed to install LILO or GRUB to
> > /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1.
> >
> > Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the only time you
> > should install a bootloader onto a partition is if you're already using
> > a bootloader on the MBR that you want to preserve and that presumably
> > will be told about the bootloader on your partition(s).
> >
> > Scott
> >
> > -- 
> > Scott Garman
> 
> Yes, that's called a chainloader. Windows actually installs a
> chainloader into the MBR, and the "real" windows bootloader in the
> first partition. That's why you can dual boot windows and linux by
> installing GRUB in the MBR, and configuring a chainloader entry in
> grub.conf for booting Windows.

That's where I went wrong. Well, actually, if Grub install hadn't
failed I'd never have put LILO on sda1.

At the moment the issue is moot. I'm kind of down on Debian right now.
have wiped out Debian Unstable and installed Fedora 12. First thing I
did was software update, and no kernel panics or crashes so far. I've
installed a couple of things, including Sylpheed. But now I better
reboot to make sure I haven't lost the window manager and gnome-panel
again. :(