[Grml] Boot loaders

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
In the past I have always used lilo for my boot loader, partly due to
lilo being the first boot loader I learnt and so never really gave much
time to learn grub and partly due to having knowledge on how to get the
boot loader screen of lilo to beep when it appears (information on the
GRML wiki about accessibility).

Last night I came across one of the problems with lilo and I believe
grub might be able to solve this. The problem was that the GRML kernel I
am running (2.6.31-grml) was updated by apt in an upgrade. I forgot to
run lilo before rebooting and so my system became impossible to boot
from the HD. At some point in the past my BIOS settings had been lost
and so my CD drive is now on a lower priority than the HD for booting
(not being able to see, I can't use the BIOS by myself to correct the
BIOS boot order, so I had no way to correct the problem).

I believe grub allows the user to enter a command at the boot screen and
so boot any device (not quite sure where I have seen this but I think it
may even have been here).

My questions:
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?
2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

Michael Whapples

[Jason White]

Post by Michael Whapples
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?

yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
new kernel image and init-rd image.

Post by Michael Whapples
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
usable.

[Michael Schierl]

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?

yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
new kernel image and init-rd image.

Grub also allows editing the configured commands and supports tab
completion of filenames, so that you don't have to type the whole
command line. Although I doubt this can be done when you cannot see the
text and the cursor on the screen. If you press 'c' from the menu you
can just enter your own (new) commands. Enter "boot" when you have
finished and the commands will be executed.

Note that Grub (like LILO) can only boot from drives accessible by your
BIOS as disk drives; if you load it from a fixed drive it will neither
be able to load a kernel from a CD or an USB drive, nor will it boot
from CD or USB directly. Booting from floppy (or a second internal disk)
works, though.

Post by Jason White
2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?

In Grub legacy you can embed a Ctrl+G character into one of the menu
titles, which are shown at bootup automatically (if you put it before
the 50th or so character; long titles are truncated in the menu display).

In Grub2 there is a "play" command in the configfile which claims to be
able to play beep sequences (of different length and pitch) defined in a
file on the PC speaker. I never tried that though, and I could not find
any documentation about the file format.

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
usable.

The main difference is that Grub1 is "rock stable" by now, and Grub2
sometimes has its glitches. But maybe the glitches are all worked out by
now, I last looked at Grub2 1.96 which was release in February 2008.


Hope this helps,


Michael

[Michael Whapples]

Thanks for the info, very useful. I will look into grub2, although grub
legacy probably will solve most of my problems with lilo.

Michael Whapples

Post by Michael Schierl

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?

yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
new kernel image and init-rd image.

Grub also allows editing the configured commands and supports tab
completion of filenames, so that you don't have to type the whole
command line. Although I doubt this can be done when you cannot see the
text and the cursor on the screen. If you press 'c' from the menu you
can just enter your own (new) commands. Enter "boot" when you have
finished and the commands will be executed.
Note that Grub (like LILO) can only boot from drives accessible by your
BIOS as disk drives; if you load it from a fixed drive it will neither
be able to load a kernel from a CD or an USB drive, nor will it boot
from CD or USB directly. Booting from floppy (or a second internal disk)
works, though.

Post by Jason White
2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?

In Grub legacy you can embed a Ctrl+G character into one of the menu
titles, which are shown at bootup automatically (if you put it before
the 50th or so character; long titles are truncated in the menu display).
In Grub2 there is a "play" command in the configfile which claims to be
able to play beep sequences (of different length and pitch) defined in a
file on the PC speaker. I never tried that though, and I could not find
any documentation about the file format.

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
usable.

The main difference is that Grub1 is "rock stable" by now, and Grub2
sometimes has its glitches. But maybe the glitches are all worked out by
now, I last looked at Grub2 1.96 which was release in February 2008.
Hope this helps,
Michael

[Michael Whapples]

Thanks for the info, very useful. I will look into grub2, although grub
legacy probably will solve most of my problems with lilo.

Michael Whapples

Post by Michael Schierl

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?

yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
new kernel image and init-rd image.

Grub also allows editing the configured commands and supports tab
completion of filenames, so that you don't have to type the whole
command line. Although I doubt this can be done when you cannot see the
text and the cursor on the screen. If you press 'c' from the menu you
can just enter your own (new) commands. Enter "boot" when you have
finished and the commands will be executed.
Note that Grub (like LILO) can only boot from drives accessible by your
BIOS as disk drives; if you load it from a fixed drive it will neither
be able to load a kernel from a CD or an USB drive, nor will it boot
from CD or USB directly. Booting from floppy (or a second internal disk)
works, though.

Post by Jason White
2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?

In Grub legacy you can embed a Ctrl+G character into one of the menu
titles, which are shown at bootup automatically (if you put it before
the 50th or so character; long titles are truncated in the menu display).
In Grub2 there is a "play" command in the configfile which claims to be
able to play beep sequences (of different length and pitch) defined in a
file on the PC speaker. I never tried that though, and I could not find
any documentation about the file format.

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
usable.

The main difference is that Grub1 is "rock stable" by now, and Grub2
sometimes has its glitches. But maybe the glitches are all worked out by
now, I last looked at Grub2 1.96 which was release in February 2008.
Hope this helps,
Michael

[Michael Whapples]

Thanks for the info, very useful. I will look into grub2, although grub
legacy probably will solve most of my problems with lilo.

Michael Whapples

Post by Michael Schierl

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?

yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
new kernel image and init-rd image.

Grub also allows editing the configured commands and supports tab
completion of filenames, so that you don't have to type the whole
command line. Although I doubt this can be done when you cannot see the
text and the cursor on the screen. If you press 'c' from the menu you
can just enter your own (new) commands. Enter "boot" when you have
finished and the commands will be executed.
Note that Grub (like LILO) can only boot from drives accessible by your
BIOS as disk drives; if you load it from a fixed drive it will neither
be able to load a kernel from a CD or an USB drive, nor will it boot
from CD or USB directly. Booting from floppy (or a second internal disk)
works, though.

Post by Jason White
2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?

In Grub legacy you can embed a Ctrl+G character into one of the menu
titles, which are shown at bootup automatically (if you put it before
the 50th or so character; long titles are truncated in the menu display).
In Grub2 there is a "play" command in the configfile which claims to be
able to play beep sequences (of different length and pitch) defined in a
file on the PC speaker. I never tried that though, and I could not find
any documentation about the file format.

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
usable.

The main difference is that Grub1 is "rock stable" by now, and Grub2
sometimes has its glitches. But maybe the glitches are all worked out by
now, I last looked at Grub2 1.96 which was release in February 2008.
Hope this helps,
Michael

[Michael Schierl]

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?

yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
new kernel image and init-rd image.

Grub also allows editing the configured commands and supports tab
completion of filenames, so that you don't have to type the whole
command line. Although I doubt this can be done when you cannot see the
text and the cursor on the screen. If you press 'c' from the menu you
can just enter your own (new) commands. Enter "boot" when you have
finished and the commands will be executed.

Note that Grub (like LILO) can only boot from drives accessible by your
BIOS as disk drives; if you load it from a fixed drive it will neither
be able to load a kernel from a CD or an USB drive, nor will it boot
from CD or USB directly. Booting from floppy (or a second internal disk)
works, though.

Post by Jason White
2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?

In Grub legacy you can embed a Ctrl+G character into one of the menu
titles, which are shown at bootup automatically (if you put it before
the 50th or so character; long titles are truncated in the menu display).

In Grub2 there is a "play" command in the configfile which claims to be
able to play beep sequences (of different length and pitch) defined in a
file on the PC speaker. I never tried that though, and I could not find
any documentation about the file format.

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
usable.

The main difference is that Grub1 is "rock stable" by now, and Grub2
sometimes has its glitches. But maybe the glitches are all worked out by
now, I last looked at Grub2 1.96 which was release in February 2008.


Hope this helps,


Michael

[Michael Schierl]

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?

yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
new kernel image and init-rd image.

Grub also allows editing the configured commands and supports tab
completion of filenames, so that you don't have to type the whole
command line. Although I doubt this can be done when you cannot see the
text and the cursor on the screen. If you press 'c' from the menu you
can just enter your own (new) commands. Enter "boot" when you have
finished and the commands will be executed.

Note that Grub (like LILO) can only boot from drives accessible by your
BIOS as disk drives; if you load it from a fixed drive it will neither
be able to load a kernel from a CD or an USB drive, nor will it boot
from CD or USB directly. Booting from floppy (or a second internal disk)
works, though.

Post by Jason White
2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?

In Grub legacy you can embed a Ctrl+G character into one of the menu
titles, which are shown at bootup automatically (if you put it before
the 50th or so character; long titles are truncated in the menu display).

In Grub2 there is a "play" command in the configfile which claims to be
able to play beep sequences (of different length and pitch) defined in a
file on the PC speaker. I never tried that though, and I could not find
any documentation about the file format.

Post by Jason White

Post by Michael Whapples
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
usable.

The main difference is that Grub1 is "rock stable" by now, and Grub2
sometimes has its glitches. But maybe the glitches are all worked out by
now, I last looked at Grub2 1.96 which was release in February 2008.


Hope this helps,


Michael

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
In the past I have always used lilo for my boot loader, partly due to
lilo being the first boot loader I learnt and so never really gave much
time to learn grub and partly due to having knowledge on how to get the
boot loader screen of lilo to beep when it appears (information on the
GRML wiki about accessibility).

Last night I came across one of the problems with lilo and I believe
grub might be able to solve this. The problem was that the GRML kernel I
am running (2.6.31-grml) was updated by apt in an upgrade. I forgot to
run lilo before rebooting and so my system became impossible to boot
from the HD. At some point in the past my BIOS settings had been lost
and so my CD drive is now on a lower priority than the HD for booting
(not being able to see, I can't use the BIOS by myself to correct the
BIOS boot order, so I had no way to correct the problem).

I believe grub allows the user to enter a command at the boot screen and
so boot any device (not quite sure where I have seen this but I think it
may even have been here).

My questions:
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?
2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

Michael Whapples

[Jason White]

Post by Michael Whapples
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?

yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
new kernel image and init-rd image.

Post by Michael Whapples
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
usable.

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
In the past I have always used lilo for my boot loader, partly due to
lilo being the first boot loader I learnt and so never really gave much
time to learn grub and partly due to having knowledge on how to get the
boot loader screen of lilo to beep when it appears (information on the
GRML wiki about accessibility).

Last night I came across one of the problems with lilo and I believe
grub might be able to solve this. The problem was that the GRML kernel I
am running (2.6.31-grml) was updated by apt in an upgrade. I forgot to
run lilo before rebooting and so my system became impossible to boot
from the HD. At some point in the past my BIOS settings had been lost
and so my CD drive is now on a lower priority than the HD for booting
(not being able to see, I can't use the BIOS by myself to correct the
BIOS boot order, so I had no way to correct the problem).

I believe grub allows the user to enter a command at the boot screen and
so boot any device (not quite sure where I have seen this but I think it
may even have been here).

My questions:
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?
2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

Michael Whapples

[Jason White]

Post by Michael Whapples
1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?

yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
new kernel image and init-rd image.

Post by Michael Whapples
3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?

I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
usable.