Grub2 Issues on Fedora 16

[crokett]

My laptop is partitioned with a 1 GB /boot partition, then the rest of the disk is an encrypted volume. The encrypted volume is carved into 4 logical volumes. 2 are for the OS, 1 is for data and 1 is for swap. I have my daily working F15 install on lv_fedora. I installed F16 on another lv named lv_fedoranew. I previously had F14 installed in lv_fedoranew. I installed F16 this morning but now when I boot the laptop grub2 shows me my F16 and F15 installs, but when I select the F15 install it boots to F16 with the 2.40.xx kernel from F15. If take the option to edit boot settings, the entry points to the wrong logical volume. Actually all the entries point to lv_fedoranew. I can boot to F15 by manually editing the boot options to point to the correct lv, but how do I fix this to boot to the correct LV? I tried adding a boot entry to custom_40 in /etc/grub.d but couldn't find the update-grub command to update grub.

[glennzo]

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Note the spaces between mkconfig -o and -o /boot

[crokett]

thank you. I found that about 5 minutes ago. Evidently grub2 on Fedora is different from Ubuntu.....

[glennzo]

Yep. It's not the same. Close, but ...

[crokett]

Ok, so the good news is that worked. The bad news is now the menu is a mess. I have several duplicate entries. How can I clean them up? Actually what I really would like is just to fall back to grub and a simple menu.lst file I can edit directly. I'm sure grub2 is better, but it is a PITA on Ubuntu and it is a PITA now.

[mrjoeyman]

I got this info from here: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub-2.html

You can add/remove entries by simply chmod-ing the scripts; no need to delete them. GRUB 2 can be reinstalled anytime you want, even while booted in the OS.

Like this:

If you do not want to have the memtest entries included, simply chmod -x the 20_memtest script. It will no longer be executable and won't be read into the grub.cfg file the next time you update GRUB.

su - chmod -x 20_memtest86+

I think you can clean up the duplicate entries like this.

[drnetsys]

Personally I find it easier just to edit the /boot/grub2/grub.cfg file manually.

[mrjoeyman]

You are brave. It is not recommended to edit that file from what I have read.

[drnetsys]

It was not recommended on grub as well but that was the only way to add entries. Im just so use to it no problems so far. It is the only way to customize the labels as well. I just make sure that any system file I edit I make a copy first.

[DBelton]

really, the only reason that it's not recommended to manually edit your /boot/grub2/grub.cfg file is because the manual changes can and will be wiped out if you run grub2-mkconfig.

Nothing wrong with manually editing your grub.cfg file, just as long as you realize it will be overwritten and you will lose the manual edits if you run grub2-mkconfig at some point in the future.

kernel updates via yum don't run grub2-mkconfig (it uses grubby) so manual edits will not be overwritten then, so your edits will be fairly safe unless you manually run grub2-mkconfig.

[mrjoeyman]

Originally Posted by DBelton

really, the only reason that it's not recommended to manually edit your /boot/grub2/grub.cfg file is because the manual changes can and will be wiped out if you run grub2-mkconfig.

Nothing wrong with manually editing your grub.cfg file, just as long as you realize it will be overwritten and you will lose the manual edits if you run grub2-mkconfig at some point in the future.

kernel updates via yum don't run grub2-mkconfig (it uses grubby) so manual edits will not be overwritten then, so your edits will be fairly safe unless you manually run grub2-mkconfig.

Sweet. Question: I normally install grub to a /boot partition that I create for the install, and manage booting from easybsd in my Windows install. If I install Fedora 16, will I be able to install grub2 to the /boot partition that I create for that install too?

[synic]

Hi,

I actually want to install Memtest into the Grub Menu.

I had started mucking around with the menu manually then found this posting.

I have memtest86+-4.20 in the /boot directory.

How can I ad it as an option to the grub menu so that I can run it as a boot option?

I'm a little stuck. All the Ubuntu blogs appear to be a different from Fedora.

[DBelton]

did you install memtest from the fedora repo?

And did you run memtest-setup as root user?

That should have configured things for you (if memtest has been updated to update grub2 versus legacy grub)

Edit:

I have found what you need as memtest-setup doesn't appear to run correctly with grub2 currently. (should be fixed soon, though)

Create a file in /etc/grub.d named 23_memtest with these contents:

#! /bin/sh
set -e

# grub-mkconfig helper script.
# Copyright (C) 2011  Michal Ambroz <rebus@seznam.cz>
#
# you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# Distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with the script.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

prefix=/usr
exec_prefix=/usr
bindir=/usr/bin
libdir=/usr/lib
. ${libdir}/grub/grub-mkconfig_lib

export TEXTDOMAIN=grub
export TEXTDOMAINDIR=${prefix}/share/locale

CLASS=""

if [ "x${GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR}" = "x" ] ; then
  OS=Memtest
else
  OS="${GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR} Memtest"
fi

# loop-AES arranges things so that /dev/loop/X can be our root device, but
# the initrds that Linux uses don't like that.
case ${GRUB_DEVICE} in
  /dev/loop/*|/dev/loop[0-9])
    GRUB_DEVICE=`losetup ${GRUB_DEVICE} | sed -e "s/^[^(]*(\([^)]\+\)).*/\1/"`
  ;;
esac

if [ "x${GRUB_DEVICE_UUID}" = "x" ] || [ "x${GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID}" = "xtrue" ] \
    || ! test -e "/dev/disk/by-uuid/${GRUB_DEVICE_UUID}" \
    || uses_abstraction "${GRUB_DEVICE}" lvm; then
  LINUX_ROOT_DEVICE=${GRUB_DEVICE}
else
  LINUX_ROOT_DEVICE=UUID=${GRUB_DEVICE_UUID}
fi

if [ "x`${grub_probe} --device ${GRUB_DEVICE} --target=fs 2>/dev/null || true`" = xbtrfs ]; then
  rootsubvol="`make_system_path_relative_to_its_root /`"
  rootsubvol="${rootsubvol#/}"
  if [ "x${rootsubvol}" != x ]; then
    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rootflags=subvol=${rootsubvol} ${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX}"
  fi
fi

memtest_entry ()
{
  os="$1"
  version="$2"
  recovery="$3"
  args="$4"
  title="$(gettext_quoted "%s %s")"
  printf "menuentry '${title}' {\n" "${os}" "${version}"


  if [ x$dirname = x/ ]; then
    if [ -z "${prepare_root_cache}" ]; then
      prepare_root_cache="$(prepare_grub_to_access_device ${GRUB_DEVICE} | sed -e "s/^/\t/")"
    fi
    printf '%s\n' "${prepare_root_cache}"
  else
    if [ -z "${prepare_boot_cache}" ]; then
      prepare_boot_cache="$(prepare_grub_to_access_device ${GRUB_DEVICE_BOOT} | sed -e "s/^/\t/")"
    fi
    printf '%s\n' "${prepare_boot_cache}"
  fi
  message="$(gettext_printf "Loading %s %s ..." ${os} ${version})"
  cat << EOF
	echo	'$message'
	linux16	${rel_dirname}/${basename}
}
EOF
}

case x`uname -m` in
    xi?86 | xx86_64)
	list=`for i in /boot/memtest* ; do
                  if grub_file_is_not_garbage "$i" ; then echo -n "$i " ; fi
              done` ;;
    *) 
	list=`for i in /boot/memtest* ; do
                  if grub_file_is_not_garbage "$i" ; then echo -n "$i " ; fi
	     done` ;;
esac

prepare_boot_cache=
prepare_root_cache=

while [ "x$list" != "x" ] ; do
  linux=`version_find_latest $list`
  echo "Found memtest image: $linux" >&2
  basename=`basename $linux`
  dirname=`dirname $linux`
  rel_dirname=`make_system_path_relative_to_its_root $dirname`
  version=`echo $basename | sed -e "s,^[^0-9]*-,,g"`
  alt_version=`echo $version | sed -e "s,\.old$,,g"`
  linux_root_device_thisversion="${LINUX_ROOT_DEVICE}"


  memtest_entry "${OS}" "${version}" false \
      "${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX} ${GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT}"

  list=`echo $list | tr ' ' '\n' | grep -vx $linux | tr '\n' ' '`
done

Then run:

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

(all these need to be done as root user)

script and everything was from the bugzilla report on this issue:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=729197

[synic]

I don't have the directory grub.d? Can I make it?

[DBelton]

What version of Fedora are you running?

If you have F16 and are running grub2, then you should have the /etc/grub.d directory

If you are running F15 and older, you probably are still using legacy grub, and in that case, all you need to do it to run memtest-setup as root and it will update your grub config for you.