Hendrik Boom <hend...@topoi.pooq.com> writes: > On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 23:06:42 +0200, lee wrote: > >> Hendrik Boom <hend...@topoi.pooq.com> writes: >> >>> Of course, after I've made my copy (with slight changes to /etc/fstab) >>> I have two nearly identical sets of partitions, so it may be tricky to >>> tell them apart. Is grub2 clever enough to figure it all out anyway? >>> And what data does it use to this end? (so I can make sure it's right!) >> >> Are you referring to grub figuring it out when booting or to grub >> figuring it out while it's being installed? (In any case, I don't know >> any of the answers ...) > > Presumably while installing grub. WHile booting, grub2 has precious few > decisions to make -- it's pretty well all scripted from the configuration > file.
It will have to figure out somehow which config to use. I don't know how it does that and assume that this information is stored when it's installed in the MBR. When you copy Linux version A to version A1 and upgrade version A to version B and version B goes wrong, wouldn't grub still look at it's configuration (its /boot directory) which is part of version B rather than at its configuration in A1? In such a case, I think you really want grub to look at A1. Can't we have a boot manager which is independent of the installed OSs? Grub kinda does its own thing already, and if there was something like a standardised API through which OSs could tell the boot manager how they are to be booted, we would install the boot manager as the first thing and only once. Then we could install as many OSs (or at least Linux versions that comply with the standard) as we like, each of them telling the boot manager how to boot them. You wouldn't have the problem you have now anymore. Doing it the other way round as we do now kinda doesn't make any sense at all. What if you install a tiny minimal Linux version only to get grub installed and exclusively use that version of grub for booting? The Debian installer and the package management would have to be fine without installing or updating grub, and you would have to boot into your minimal version to update grub from there. Is that possible? -- Debian testing amd64 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87d31nl60c....@yun.yagibdah.de
