[Political mode ON]
A third way exists! [Political mode OFF]
G4D can be used with its own mbr, and I believe it is not more difficult than other ways.
I've not time to write now, but if someone is interested in this thing, I'll be back in the night (GMT+1).
"G4D can be used with its own mbr, and I believe it is not more difficult than other ways.
I've not time to write now, but if someone is interested in this thing, I'll be back in the night"
I am interested . I am using grub4dos on one computer because grub wouldn't work.
So... 4 reply posts later nobody noticed that this guy does not want a frugal install?
@David2010: please consider installing slackware.
I installed slax to HD (not frugal) on my laptop and was happy with it for years, but I recently (4 or 5 months ago) ventured into slackware and it works quite well also.
I just installed about the same packages that slax has, and got a light, fast and stable OS that serves my needs.
I think Tomas is right on this one (and it took me a while to agree with this view): slax is a live linux distro and installing it to HD should not be supported.
If you still want to do it, you can... but you are on your own.
If you want to do a frugal install (which is supported) read the documentation or the hundreds of posts on the subject.
Dude wrote:
So... 4 reply posts later nobody noticed that this guy does not want a frugal install?
@David2010: please consider installing slackware.
I installed slax to HD (not frugal) on my laptop and was happy with it for years, but I recently (4 or 5 months ago) ventured into slackware and it works quite well also.
I just installed about the same packages that slax has, and got a light, fast and stable OS that serves my needs.
I think Tomas is right on this one (and it took me a while to agree with this view): slax is a live linux distro and installing it to HD should not be supported.
If you still want to do it, you can... but you are on your own.
If you want to do a frugal install (which is supported) read the documentation or the hundreds of posts on the subject.
Well I had in mind to do a full install and not frugal but I decided that for the safety of the OS and the fact that I have a tendency to accidentally screw things up I made a small script that would mount my hard drive save all my settings into a compressed tar file and then unmount the hard drive.
This way if I make a big mistake I can easily just delete my saved file and start over again without having to reinstall the entire OS.
I just have to figure out how to load it at startup and save to it at shutdown. :-/
The only thing I don't like about it is that it takes 2 minutes to boot up. :-/
jcsoh wrote:
I am interested . I am using grub4dos on one computer because grub wouldn't work.
This allows g4d booting itself without WinXp, grub-like way.
Ingredients:
-Grub4dos files
-Dos booting capability (freedos diskette works well, Ubcd freedos boot CD also works
or
-Linux booting capability (some live CD)
-a bit of attention
Target:
install g4d boot code in mbr not scratching a disk (if possible).
Common part (Dos, Win, Linux, gui or command line:
As first, make a "grub" folder in the target drive and copy all the g4d
files in it. While you are there, copy grldr to the root of the same hd (the
following process doesn't itself). EDIT
"Root" means the top level of the drive (c:\ or /dev/hdxx. /EDIT
You also must provide a valid menu.lst in the "grub" folder.
If you want, you can begin to build your hd with your preferred OS (let's
take a random OS, to make it easy, and copy boot and slax
folders from the downloaded and untarred :-P file or from the downloaded
iso). When you are satisfied of the jam, proceed to next step.
The linux way:
Boot the same random OS from a live CD.
Unmount the target drive.
Open a console, chdir to that grub folder or the previous step and type
the command:
bootlace.com /dev/hda
The command name must include the extension, Linux doesn't
recognize automatically .com or .exe as executables.
The argument can be changed according to your needs (I use /dev/hdc for
the secondary hd I'm preparing for other machines).
The dos way:
Boot a flat dos.
Chdir to the same "grub" folder and type the command:
bootlace 0x80 or bootlace.com 0x80
The argument can be changed according to your needs. I also use 0x81 for
the secondary hd on first adapter. I don't know the Hex addresses of the
second adapter.
Done. The system should boot directly in g4d menu.
A poor reference for bootlace can be found in g4d readme, usually
included in the package.
One note:
every beetle is fine for his mother, so if you upgrade g4d you must "bootlace" again your mbr, 'cause every grldr has its bootlace.
This took me an afternoon of bad words when upgrading from g4d 043 to 044.
----------
There is another utility to make the same job, "grubinst", for which a nice gui is available. I use this couple of programs to make usb grub-bootable in the easiest way (expecially pendrives); just format and shot the utility.
----------
EDITED A FEW TIMES
Thanks for the how to, but I have 1 question.
I have 4 partition on my hard disk sda.
sda1 a primary partition with window xp
sda 2 a primary partitioon with slax
sda 4 and 5 are logical partition for my data.
Assuming I want to put /grub in /sda1 /
You stated "While you are there, copy grldr to the root of the hd (the
following process doesn't itself).
Which is consider the root of the hard disk (I am doing in from linux say a slax live cd).
"/" ,"/mnt" "/sda2" ???
Don't you people have better questions to ask?
Use search function type "How do I install Slax" and you should get more than 1000 threads asking the same question!
Don't you people have better questions to ask?
Use search function type "How do I install Slax" and you should get more than 1000 threads asking the same question!
Nah, it's better to make another thread.
Were going for a guinness world record for the most asked question in a single forum.
Which is consider the root of the hard disk (I am doing in from linux say a slax live cd).
"/" ,"/mnt" "/sda2" ???
/mnt/hda1
or
c:\ in dos/win
where usually ntldr installs itself.
I thought "/" was the user root, not hd root if you don't define it this way, isn't it?
I repeat, I'm all but a system specialist.
EDIT
If you are working on a second hd installed "on the fly" on your machine, to be used in another machine, the path can obviously vary (/mnt/hdx, or d:\, or whatever).
Dude wrote:
Were going for a guinness world record for the most asked question in a single forum. I'm not sure if it's this or about the wireless... Both questions seem to have 100's of threads by now :(
There are many resources out there, like the wiki by fundamental, Hool.de.Nord's site with video guides: http://slaxy.tk/ or http://natureheals.info/linux/slax/index.html by Guy and of course there is Google but no one seems to use them. At some point the older (and wiser) users left the forum or stopped answering the same questions on and on which had already been answered 2 hours earlier...
I remember back in the old days, many users had expressed their interest into some restructuring of the Slax site but nothing was done. To prevent flames and rants (I seem to attract them) let me remind you that the Build feature is nice but unrelated to this issue.
At least some links in the main site to the above sites might decrease the load of questions...
A little group of users could share the same account (password provided by private mail) and maintain a sticky thread (approved by Tomas): one post, one howto. I don't know if it's possible to make a reserved, or read-only thread (anyway posts can be deleted by the first mantainer online), and what could happen if more maintainers are accessing the forum together in the same moment with the same account.
A little traffic of private mails and a lot of re-editing in the beginning, but I guess in a short time the number of posts will decrease.
I wrote "I guess", not "I bet" :-D
captain_picard wrote: Dude wrote:
Were going for a guinness world record for the most asked question in a single forum. I'm not sure if it's this or about the wireless... Both questions seem to have 100's of threads by now :(
Well, the "install to hd" threads win by a large margin because there are many different wireless devices and it's kinda legitimate to ask for help for each wifi NIC...
I finally had the time to try you how to.
Feedback
My sole hard disk is sda
I put grub4dos in /mnt/sda6/grub
I copy grldr to /mnt/sda1 (or c:\)
I have menu/lst at 3 locations
/mnt/sda1 (use by grub4dos depending on window xp as a boot loader via boot.ini
/mnt/sda4/boot/grub (use by grub)
/mnt/sda6/grub (this is what I intended to use for this experiment)
Open console
Change directory to /mnt/sda6/grub
Type
bootlace.com /dev/sda
I tried a few time but I get a command not found.
I renamed bootlace.com to bootlace.sh
I type
./bootlace.sh
It run sucessfully and I can boot up in grub menu , but it pick up the 1st menu.lst in /mnt/sda1 (c:\)
Any way I renamed bootlace.sh back to bootlace.com and retried
bootlace.com /dev/sda
This time it work.(I don't know why it won't work earlier)
By trial and error, I can confirm that it will pick up the menu.lst in sequence ie , 1st from /mnt/sda1 , then /mnt/sda4 and finally from /mnt/sda6.
I confirmed that it no longer relies on window xp by renamimg the window boot.ini file and still boot up sucessfully.
So the only comment to your how to is:
This part is not true:
"You also must provide a valid menu.lst in the "grub" folder . It appear to pick up the first menu.lst it detected , but obviously under normal circumstance , it's logical to put the menu.lst in grub folder to avoid accidentally deleting it.
EDITED / ADDITION
I did it again on another computer .On this computer grub doesn't work so all the while I had to rely on grub4dos using window xp boot loader.\
As before running the command bootlace.com gives "command not found" , so I just rename it to boolace.sh and run ./bootlace.sh , and it work.
Well I admit it's based on my preference to keep a config file near its owner.
There is well-known order in finding menu.lst, explained in g4d readme.
By default, GRUB will locate its config file in the following order:
(DOS file) .\menu.lst, the MENU.LST in the current dir.
(DOS file) \menu.lst, the MENU.LST in the root dir of the current drive.
(GRUB file) /menu.lst, the MENU.LST in the root dir of the boot device.
If i run ./bootlace.sh /dev/sda , what happen if I delete window xp (on sda1) and reformat sda1 ? Does this mean the grub4dos bootloader will be deleted,
If I decide to get rid of window xp , I would rather format sda1 to a linux file system as currently only window partition is using ntfs while all the other partitions are already using ext3.
I did it erasing all win stuffs and retaining fat32 without formatting.
The right (general) question is "Does a format write mbr?"
I suppose it doesn't in Dos (if I'm not wrong, you must shoot a sys for the volume to write the boot code).
I suppose programs like gparted do it only if asked but I can't say what kind of code they write on mbr.
I can remember I've reformatted partitions with gparted, and reused without "bootlacing" again.
I must reread some docs.
By the way, a fourth way exists.
-boot a freedos cd
-make a sys on your c drive
-verify that freedos kernel.sys is in place on c:\ , if not copy it
-add grub.exe
-add menu.lst
-write a simple autoexec.bat or fdauto.bat containing only the command "grub".
-done
