Documentation bug?

Documentation bug?

[Chris Jones]

Sorry for the catchy ’Subject:’ above, I am not sure at this point
whether it is appropriate.

I plan to make extensive changes to a multi-boot environment and
I looked in ‘GNU GRUB Manual 1.99~beta0’ for a way to create a CD/DVD
that would reflect the state of my grub environment, (including my
/boot/grub/menu.cfg) that would let me boot the system as if I was
booting from the HD. 

My understanding is that the correct procedure is described in section
3.2 of the above manual: Making a GRUB bootable CD-ROM.

The first step specifies the following:

| Copy the file stage2_eltorito:
| 
|  $ cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito iso/boot/grub

I looked on the ubuntu 10.10 system where my grub environment happens to
live and was unable to find any file named ‘stage2_eltorito’ anywhere on
the system and definitely not in the above directory.

I have just downloaded a tarball of grub-1.99~rc1, and a ‘find’ command
on the untarred tree did not return any positives either.

Is this file part of another package that complements grub?

Is the documentation in the process of being updated?

Am I missing something?

If the above procedure is not longer current, please let me know how
I could create a bootable copy of my current grub environment,
preferably on a CD or DVD, so that I could use it as a simple backup
solution in the event I am no longer able to boot my systems from the
hard drive.

Thanks,

cj

Re: Documentation bug?

[Bruce Dubbs]

Chris Jones wrote:
> Sorry for the catchy ’Subject:’ above, I am not sure at this point
> whether it is appropriate.
> 
> I plan to make extensive changes to a multi-boot environment and
> I looked in ‘GNU GRUB Manual 1.99~beta0’ for a way to create a CD/DVD
> that would reflect the state of my grub environment, (including my
> /boot/grub/menu.cfg) that would let me boot the system as if I was
> booting from the HD. 

I don't know where you looked, but the information you refer to is for 
GRUB Legacy.  The configuration file for GRUB 2 is /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Try http://grub.enbug.org/Manual


> My understanding is that the correct procedure is described in section
> 3.2 of the above manual: Making a GRUB bootable CD-ROM.
> 
> The first step specifies the following:
> 
> | Copy the file stage2_eltorito:
> | 
> |  $ cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito iso/boot/grub
> 
> I looked on the ubuntu 10.10 system where my grub environment happens to
> live and was unable to find any file named ‘stage2_eltorito’ anywhere on
> the system and definitely not in the above directory.
> 
> I have just downloaded a tarball of grub-1.99~rc1, and a ‘find’ command
> on the untarred tree did not return any positives either.
> 
> Is this file part of another package that complements grub?
> 
> Is the documentation in the process of being updated?
> 
> Am I missing something?
> 
> If the above procedure is not longer current, please let me know how
> I could create a bootable copy of my current grub environment,
> preferably on a CD or DVD, so that I could use it as a simple backup
> solution in the event I am no longer able to boot my systems from the
> hard drive.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> cj
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
> 

Re: Documentation bug?

[richardvoigt]

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>
>
> I have just downloaded a tarball of grub-1.99~rc1, and a ‘find’ command
> on the untarred tree did not return any positives either.
>

What tarball have you downloaded?  Source code, probably.  stage2_eltorito
is machine code that has to be compiled for the particular architecture.

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Re: Documentation bug?

[Chris Jones]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 09:22:36PM EST, Bruce Dubbs wrote:
> Chris Jones wrote:

>> I plan to make extensive changes to a multi-boot environment and
>> I looked in ‘GNU GRUB Manual 1.99~beta0’ for a way to create a CD/DVD
>> that would reflect the state of my grub environment, (including my
>> /boot/grub/menu.cfg) that would let me boot the system as if I was
>> booting from the HD. 
>
> I don't know where you looked, but the information you refer to is for  
> GRUB Legacy.  The configuration file for GRUB 2 is /boot/grub/grub.cfg 

Same place as usual :-)

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD_002dROM

OK wise guy.. I meant ‘grub.cfg’ ..

The file referred to in the _grub 1.99_ manual (grub 1.99.. that should
be grub2 right?) and that is missing from _both_ the ubuntu 10.10 system
_and_ the tarball, is *stage2_eltorito*. 

> Try http://grub.enbug.org/Manual

Never heard of this site.. 

Anybody?

Thanks,

cj

Re: Documentation bug?

[Bruce Dubbs]

Chris Jones wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 09:22:36PM EST, Bruce Dubbs wrote:
>> Chris Jones wrote:
> 
>>> I plan to make extensive changes to a multi-boot environment and
>>> I looked in ‘GNU GRUB Manual 1.99~beta0’ for a way to create a CD/DVD
>>> that would reflect the state of my grub environment, (including my
>>> /boot/grub/menu.cfg) that would let me boot the system as if I was
>>> booting from the HD. 
>> I don't know where you looked, but the information you refer to is for  
>> GRUB Legacy.  The configuration file for GRUB 2 is /boot/grub/grub.cfg 
> 
> Same place as usual :-)
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD_002dROM
> 
> OK wise guy.. I meant ‘grub.cfg’ ..
> 
> The file referred to in the _grub 1.99_ manual (grub 1.99.. that should
> be grub2 right?) and that is missing from _both_ the ubuntu 10.10 system
> _and_ the tarball, is *stage2_eltorito*. 

You referred to grub.cfg and stage2*.  AFAIK those are GRUB Legacy and 
not GRUB 2.

There does indeed seem to be a problem with the GRUB 2 documentation. 
Most of the files in /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/ are of type .mod and .img. 
I think the file you want is cdboot.img, but I'm not sure how to use it.

>> Try http://grub.enbug.org/Manual
> 
> Never heard of this site.. 

That's the GRUB Wiki.

   -- Bruce

Re: Documentation bug?

[Chris Jones]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 10:39:48PM EST, Bruce Dubbs wrote:
> Chris Jones wrote:

[..]

> You referred to grub.cfg and stage2*.  AFAIK those are GRUB Legacy and
> not GRUB 2.
>
> There does indeed seem to be a problem with the GRUB 2 documentation.
> Most of the files in /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/ are of type .mod and .img.
> I think the file you want is cdboot.img, but I'm not sure how to use
> it.
>
>>> Try http://grub.enbug.org/Manual
>>
>> Never heard of this site.. 
>
> That's the GRUB Wiki.

Thanks Bruce, and apologies for being a bit tetchy about this.

I was sort of thinking to myself that the doc on gnu.org was a mix of
old grub 0.9x and the new 1.9x.. and I should have said so in the first
place.

What made the whole thing even more frustrating is that my grub setup is
on a different partition than my email.. and I found out that since it
is ext4, I'm not even able to mount that partition from my debian lenny
system where my mail lives.. hence the wrong file name.. ‘menu.cfg’ is
neither grub1 not grub2.. it never existed in the first place.

This said, I really believe having the wrong doc on the gnu.org web site
is an accident waiting to happen.. 

I have very briefly checked the manual at http://grub.enbug.org/Manual¹
and there does not seem to be a description of a similar procedure to
what I saw section 3.2 of the ‘other’ manual. 

I am pretty sure I would be able to fix just about any problem I might
run into when rearranging my system.. but I was hoping that having
a ready-to-go solution in the form of a CD/DVD with a copy of my hard
disk's grub environment might save me the headaches.. 

I'm not even sure now that what I had in mind is at all feasible with
grub2, save using a floppy, which would mean purchasing an external
drive.. I guess they still make them.

Anyway, unless you can point me to an equivalent of that section 3.2 of
the other manual that would work with the grub I'm currently running --
I believe it is version 1.99 -- I'll take another look at ubuntu's live
CD creation procedure.. It uses isolinux naturally, but I have vague
memories that it also lets you do some things using grub instead.. 

But first I need to read the ‘new’ manual.

cj

Re: Documentation bug?

[Chris Jones]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 10:07:24PM EST, richardvoigt@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> >
> > I have just downloaded a tarball of grub-1.99~rc1, and a ‘find’ command
> > on the untarred tree did not return any positives either.
> >
> 
> What tarball have you downloaded?  Source code, probably. 

Good question. I followed the links from the http://www.gnu.org site and
found a large number of tarballs at <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub>.

I chose the one with the highest verstion right at the bottom of the
page. It didn't matter much, since I was only downloading it to take
a look at the contents of the tarball.. I was not planning to install
it: since I run debian or ubuntu.. I do not normally install anything
off of tarballs.

> stage2_eltorito is machine code that has to be compiled for the
> particular architecture.

Right, but like Bruce said, this file is not part of grub-pc alias
grub2. But come to think of it, I can't recall creating a bootable CD or
DVD on that ubuntu system where I have grub2 setup. 

I guess I need to take a (much) closer look.. 

Thanks,

cj

Re: Documentation bug?

[KESHAV P.R.]

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 07:40, Chris Jones <cjns1989@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry for the catchy ’Subject:’ above, I am not sure at this point
> whether it is appropriate.
>
> I plan to make extensive changes to a multi-boot environment and
> I looked in ‘GNU GRUB Manual 1.99~beta0’ for a way to create a CD/DVD
> that would reflect the state of my grub environment, (including my
> /boot/grub/menu.cfg) that would let me boot the system as if I was
> booting from the HD.
>
> My understanding is that the correct procedure is described in section
> 3.2 of the above manual: Making a GRUB bootable CD-ROM.
>

You can take a look at grub-mkrescue shell script in utils dir to find
out how to create a bootable grub2 cd.

> The first step specifies the following:
>
> | Copy the file stage2_eltorito:
> |
> |  $ cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito iso/boot/grub
>
> I looked on the ubuntu 10.10 system where my grub environment happens to
> live and was unable to find any file named ‘stage2_eltorito’ anywhere on
> the system and definitely not in the above directory.
>
> I have just downloaded a tarball of grub-1.99~rc1, and a ‘find’ command
> on the untarred tree did not return any positives either.
>
> Is this file part of another package that complements grub?
>
> Is the documentation in the process of being updated?
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> If the above procedure is not longer current, please let me know how
> I could create a bootable copy of my current grub environment,
> preferably on a CD or DVD, so that I could use it as a simple backup
> solution in the event I am no longer able to boot my systems from the
> hard drive.
>
> Thanks,
>
> cj
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Grub-devel mailing list
> Grub-devel@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel
>

Re: Documentation bug?

[Chris Jones]

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 12:46:57AM EST, KESHAV P.R. wrote:

> You can take a look at grub-mkrescue shell script in utils dir to find
> out how to create a bootable grub2 cd.

Yes, it was as simple as:

| $ mkdir /tmp/iso
| $ grub-mkrescue -o grub.iso /boot/grub
| $ growisofs.... etc.

I booted from the DVD but only got a ‘grub > ’ and it took me a good bit
of googling to figure out that I needed issue the following command to
make the grub menu appear:

| grub > configfile /boot.cfg

Of course, my setup is very basic, with a flat multi-boot menu, but all
the same, I feel that both the procedure to create the boot disk and how
to use it when recovering really need to be documented in the new
manual: In the event of a mishap, I can just slip in my custom grub
rescue disk instead of having to hunt for an install or live CD/DVD and
waste time fumbling for the correct grub command syntax to get the
machine to boot.. Priceless!

Thanks,

cj

Re: Documentation bug?

[Colin Watson]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 09:10:41PM -0500, Chris Jones wrote:
> My understanding is that the correct procedure is described in section
> 3.2 of the above manual: Making a GRUB bootable CD-ROM.
> 
> The first step specifies the following:
> 
> | Copy the file stage2_eltorito:
> | 
> |  $ cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito iso/boot/grub

Thanks for your report.  This is clearly out of date; my apologies.
I've updated it to describe the grub-mkrescue program in GRUB 2, and
updated the web-viewable copy of the documentation:

  http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD_002dROM

Regards,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@ubuntu.com]

Re: Documentation bug?

[Chris Jones]

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 12:17:56PM EST, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 09:10:41PM -0500, Chris Jones wrote:

> > My understanding is that the correct procedure is described in section
> > 3.2 of the above manual: Making a GRUB bootable CD-ROM.
> > 
> > The first step specifies the following:
> > 
> > | Copy the file stage2_eltorito:
> > | 
> > |  $ cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito iso/boot/grub
> 
> Thanks for your report.  This is clearly out of date; my apologies.
> I've updated it to describe the grub-mkrescue program in GRUB 2, and
> updated the web-viewable copy of the documentation:
> 
>   http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD_002dROM

Thanks. 

cj