On Sun, 2005-05-22 at 17:11 -0400, Bill Case wrote: > Thank you Phil, I really appreciate the help. Going back on the list for the benefit of future searchers [and forgoing the usually-preferred trimming of the message to provide context]... > > On Sun, 2005-22-05 at 08:31 -0400, Phil Schaffner wrote: > > On Fri, 2005-05-20 at 09:49 -0400, Bill Case wrote: > > > Hi; > > > > > > I have been playing with this for three or four days and still haven't > > > got it right. Any help would be appreciated. > > > > > > Have done this for my wife and kids for some years now. [Fortunately, > > they have all pretty well outgrown the need for the boot floppy, and all > > use both OSs. Still haven't gotten to the state where I can blow away > > the Evil Empire OS due to games and one or two apps the wife won't give > > up.] I use the script below (as root) and edit the grub.conf file on > > the floppy to change the default stanza to boot. Your case may be a bit > > harder as you don't seem to have a dual-boot grub setup to start from, > > as the script expects. Would need much more detail on the system to > > help create the correct grub.conf stanza[s]. Hope studying the script > > will give a clue or two. > > > > > Will I still want or > > > need /root? > > > > Don't quite understand the question, but don't think you can live > > without /root which is root's home directory. > > > > Sorry Phil -- so stupid -- I meant /boot. I have a boot partition on > both my machine and hers on which I have installed grub. On my own > machine my boot loader is Boot Magic which I use to call /boot/grub. > I meant to ask, how do I set up the floppy to call her /boot/grub, or > can I put grub on the floppy and boot from there?, or is there a better > way? Will I still need her /boot/grub partition? Yes. Not familiar with Ubuntu, but you will still need to get to the the files that live in /boot on Fedora, whether in a directory or a partition. The boot floppy usually does not have room to hold a kernel and initrd with the size of today's Linux. > > I tried using a rescue disk and wasn't very successful. It seemed far to > complicated to use each time for a simple 'floppy key'. > > > > Is there a way that I can get to the Linux on her system > > > while I am on my own Fedora downstairs? > > > > Yes - ssh will get you there - assuming it is booted under Linux, and > > the machines are networked, wired or wireless. [Don't really think you > > want to get into Cygwin with the sensitivity to messing up the spouse's > > system, so won't go there.] > > To further clarify, networking is not my strong point -- never needed it > before; but this 'new' house is wired and therefore I have managed to > share printers. > > Her machine is always on in XP. I was wondering if there was some way, > late at night, without physically going upstairs and rebooting into > Linux, I could magically use her machine remotely. No way I know of, except rebooting into Linux (or Cygwin - *nix-like commands/environment for Windows). > (That ended up being a scary paragraph, although it started innocently > enough.) > > > > > > > Are any of you married? Can I really get into big trouble doing this? > > > > Yup. > > Still Yup? Given your earlier description, experience with my wife, and tales from other Linux users with Windows-wives of my acquaintance, YES - you can still get into big trouble! :-) Hopefully not too much. > > > Good luck, > > Phil > > > > ------------------------ Cut Here ----------------------- > I liked your script. Is it necessary to copy grub each time and why do > you have to re-mkdir? Assumes a new GRUB floppy image is being created each time. > > Regards Bill You could run the script on your Fedora system, then mount the floppy (as /media/floppy) and edit /media/floppy/grub/grub.conf to change things to match the Ubuntu system on your wife's box; however, would still need details such as what lives on what partition to advise further. Regards, Phil
