Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:
Wilson Woon wrote:
Hi all....
I'm trying to install Windows XP, Fedora Core 3 and RedHat Linux 9 all
in one hard disk. At first I installed Windows XP and then Fedora Core
3. I use the Grub loader to load both of them. However, when it comes
to RedHat 9, I'm not sure how to do? How do I configure the Grub
loader so that it will detect RedHat 9 as well? Do I need to install
the Grub loader when installing RedHat 9 since already have one?
How do I solve this problem? Please help. I don't mind reformatting
the whole HDD if necessary...
Simple. Don't install or configure any boot loader with RedHat9.
Than boot into FC3 and edit grub.conf. Copy the lines you have for
FC3 (they start with title line, and there's usually three more
lines), and edit them accordingly. You'll probably end up with
something like this:
title Red Hat Linux 9 (2.4.xx-xx)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.xx-xx ro root=/dev/hda1
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.xx-xx.img
title Fedora Core 3 (2.6.xx-xx)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.xx-xx ro root=/dev/hda2
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.xx-xx.img
Rreplace xx-xx with your kernel version. Of course, you'll need to
replace all references to disks and partitions to match your actual
configuration.
The root line tells wich disk and which partition on it contains file
system where your kernel is. Second two lines tell where relative to
this root your kernel and initrd images are (so really, two kernel
lines are pointing to two different directories, one is pointing to
/boot on hda0,0, the other is pointing to /boot on hd0,1). Root
option in kernel line isn't for boot loader, it is for kernel. It is
not the same as root line in grub.conf. That option tells kernel
which partition to mount as root file system during boot.
Grub and kernel are numerating disks differently, so root line and
root option are likely to be different. Grub starts counting with 0,
kernel starts counting with 1 for both partitions and disks. So "root
(hd0,0)" and "root=/dev/hda1" from above example are referencing the
same disk (grub hd0 is kernel hda) and same partition (grub hd0,0 is
therefore kernel hda1, and grub hd0,1 is what kernel sees as hda2).
If you have /boot as separate file system in your Red Hat 9 install,
root line in grub.conf should point to that parition! This is very
important! root line should always point to partition where kernel
and initrd image are stored. kernel and initrd lines should point to
files relative to this partition, not relative to your root file
system (so that would be /vmlinuz-xxx and /initrd-xxx.img in this
case)! Root option in kernel line should point to where your root
file system is (in this case, root line and root kernel option will
point to two different partitions)!
For whatever it's worth, this method is the way I do it. Works great. I
have multiple versions of Linux installed, but only one boot loader. I
edit grub.conf to add the proper lines when the kernel is upgraded. You
just have to know where the root partition is for each version, so you
can properly modify the lines in each "title" section of grub.conf.
Regards...Terry
