[SOLVED] Adding Slackware to Grub

[hongman]

Hi all

Currently have a Tosh Laptop with Windows XP and Auditor Security Edition installed (Kanotix based), booting off GRUB.

I have just created another partition and installed BackTrack (slackware based) but that wiped GRUB and used LILO, scapping all my other boot options.

Anyway, I have managed to restore GRUB back to the way it was, all I need to do now is add BackTrack to the GRUB menu.lst.

But how? Not sure which options I need to specify with it, like "acpi=off" and other random bits like that...

Thanks
hong

[Parcival]

Basically all you need is to have a correct entry pointing to your slackware kernel. Everything else is optional.

[hongman]

Ok, so the entry for my Auditor install is

title	Auditor Security Edition 
root		(hd0,4)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 ro ramdisk_size=100000 lang=us apm=power-off nomce noapm vga=791 
initrd		/boot/initrd.img
savedefault
boot

Do I just need to change it to:

title BackTrack
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7 ro ramdisk_size=100000 lang=us apm=power-off nomce noapm vga=791
initrd /boot/initrd.img
boot

Would that work?

[Parcival]

It depends on how your Linux kernel is named, you have to name the entry in your file accordingly.

Gentoo has a good section on Grub configuration. Have especially a look at Code Listing 3 and the sidenotes. Also have a look at your /boot folder, your kernel should have an obvious name that lets you recognize it as the kernel.

[hongman]

Tried it, didnt work..

Boots into BackTrack but hangs there, amongst other things I can see it saying its mouted the volume read-only, something about NTFS being dirty and it gets stuck on trying to start syslogd.

I was wondering, when I first installed linux grub automatically picked up windows,.

Is there no way to get it to scan and automagically pick up BackTrack?

[saikee]

Two ways to skin this cat.

(1) Dircet method - Just append the menu.lst of Linux B (Backtrack) to the menu.lst of Linux A (Auditor). Save the file and the both Linux will be bootable in Linux A.

(2) Indirect method - While inside Linux B (Backtrack, accessable by chroot from Linux A), replicate Grub inside its root partition (hd0,6) by command

grub-install /dev/hda7

Then in menu.lst of Linux A add these lines

title Backtrack booted indirectly by chainloading
chainloader (hd0,6)+1

Grub counts from 0 so (hd0,6) is hda7 in Linux, unless you use a Sata in which case use sda7 instead of hda7.

[Parcival]

The true master has spoken.

[saikee]

Parcival

You you turned my face red

I am learning from the fourm same as every newbie here.

[hongman]

Thanks.

In the end, I ended up with:

title BackTrack
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz rw root=/dev/hda7

And thats it, working perfectly.

Thanks!

[Parcival]

Originally Posted by saikee

You you turned my face red

I alreadey told you you're too humble.

Originally Posted by saikee

I am learning from the fourm same as every newbie here.

So do I, but I doubt there's anyone in these forums who knows GRUB better than you do.

Solved.

[saikee]

Parcival,

Thanks for the kind word.

We learn a lot from Justlinux because the moderators are active. I for one am always pay attention to what they say.