William Case wrote:
They can't mesh other than by convention. When updating the config,
kernel, initrd, etc., files you are working with the OS (doesn't have to
be linux) view of the filesystem and it's relative locations. When grub
boots, it only has the bios view of things and only sees one partition
through the bios conventions.
Grub's job is to find partitions and file systems; not to use them.
Grub doesn't 'find' partitions, you tell it where the one it will use is
from the bios perspective with the root (hdx,x) directive before
installing.
Grub is so powerful exactly because it can find so many different kinds
of partitions/filesystems and load them and their kernels with their
various forms of init into memory.
That's true, and it makes it possible to change the configuration,
although not the partition to be used, without reinstalling grub itself
as you would with lilo. However, it still doesn't know/care what the OS
it is booting will call those partitions or if they are subsequently
mounted at all.
To do that Grub needs its own generic file system (rudimentary though it
is) and it's own small kernel that allows it to operate on *any*
machine. The manuals (although I agree they could have some basic (less
technical) explanations included) deal only with the GRUB file system
and kernel making no assumptions about the partitions/files/kernel(s)
that will eventually be loaded.
And the missing piece is that you - or the distro-packaged scripts -
update those locations through the OS concepts of where that partition
is mounted. This part is OS/distro specific and doesn't have a lot to
do with grub.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
