[arch-general] Reboot - Versioned Kernel Installs

[Heiko Baums]

Am Sat, 11 Jun 2011 23:07:00 -0400
schrieb "Joe(theWordy)Philbrook" <jtwdyp at ttlc.net>:

> Actually It's been a long time since I had actual boot failures with
> Arch... And if memory serves it wasn't the updated kernels fault,
> though I no longer remember what I'd done...

You see, those cases in which a kernel update leads to a boot failure
are very rare. ;-)

And Arch Linux kernels are usually tested in [testing] and are only
moved to [core] if there are no bigger issues found.

> However I have
> experienced other Linux that no longer booted properly upon kernel
> upgrades... When my grub installation fails to properly boot one of
> my Linux, I immediately use the chainloader entry to get that
> distro's own grub. Having a back-up in case a new kernel doesn't work
> for me just feels like the right thing to do. And now I know (and
> will have notes) how to resolve that problem in the event that an
> Arch kernel upgrade ever does fail me. Thanks again! 
> ...
> Well I call it grub legacy because that's what gnu.org is calling it
> now...

That's what it's called.

> According to them the old grub has been replaced with a new version.
> Though I don't see it as an improvement. 
> I think the only Distro I've got installed that really likes "grub 2"
> is Ubuntu, But since I didn't let it use ext4, I can still even boot
> that with the classic grub. ☻  

Which bootloader you need depends on your installation and hardware,
not on the distro. There are at least 3 bootloaders (grub legacy, grub2
and syslinux) which have different capabilities and can't easily be
replaced in any case. But all of them can handle ext4.

> I guess you would either call it just a "grub partition" Or perhaps
> you would have said "boot partition" without specifying which boot
> loader is installed there.

I guess you meant the /boot partition. ;-)

> It is not that uncommon among multi-Linux-Distro, multi-booters to
> have a separate bootloader installed to the MBR from the ones each
> distro installed to their root partitions. Though the others I've
> heard about usually just select the appropriate chainloader entry for
> the Linux they want to boot, which in turn usually has a very short
> timeout before it automatically boots it's default entry.
> 
> I myself rarely bother with the chainloader entries. They are mostly
> only there in case I goof when I edit the entries I normally boot
> from. This configuration also makes it easy to use a supergrub disc
> in the event that my normal boot partition gets corrupted as each
> installed Linux has it's own boot loader so all I'd need to tell
> supergrub is to boot the appropriate partition...

I would completely remove the chainloaders.

Make one /boot parition for every distro, but only install one
bootloader from your main distro into the MBR. Don't let the other
distros install a bootloader and just configure the one bootloader to
boot the other distros, too. That's the easiest way which should always
work.

Btw., if you let every distro install a bootloader into the MBR, the
previously installed one will be overwritten. There won't be two
different bootloaders in the MBR.

Depending on what you are doing with your multi-boot system, you
probably should consider using virtualization.

Heiko