[Novalug] Article on GRUB, including creating a DSL bootable USB thumb drive

[Beartooth]

On Mon, 5 Feb 2007, James (Jim) Darlack wrote:

>  I found an interesting article on GRUB.  It even details how 
> to create a USB thumb drive that is bootable using Damn Small 
> Linux:
>
>  http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/grub_intro

 	Timely for me, as is also 
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/index.html -- 
but both, alas! are over my head (as things grub usually are).

 	Having recently failed despite much help on the fedora 
general list to get my old testbed machine to connect, I wiped 
the whole thing, yet again, with DBAN -- and tried again to 
install CentOS on hda, with FC6 on hdb, but with more attention 
to the directions on setting up grub this time.

 	Both installs reported success; and CentOS did a you 
update as well as downloading and installing Opera, Pine, and a 
couple more things.

 	But nano -w /etc/grub.conf has this :

   GNU nano 1.2.4             File: /etc/grub.conf

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to 
this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, 
eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro 
root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=15
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.9-42.0.8.EL)
         root (hd0,0)
         kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL ro 
root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
         initrd /initrd-2.6.9-42.0.8.EL.img
title CentOS-4 i386 (2.6.9-42.EL)
         root (hd0,0)
         kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-42.EL ro 
root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
         initrd /initrd-2.6.9-42.EL.img
title FC6
         rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

 	When I reboot and tell it to boot Fedora, I get an error.

 	I expect I want an entry for Fedora that looks like the 
ones for CentOS -- depending on what's actually in the first 
location on hda. If anything, that is. Looking with the GUI as 
user, Properties gives me 0 bytes for both hda and hda1; as root, 
I get this :

[root at localhost ~]# cd /dev
[root at localhost dev]# file hda
hda: block special (3/0)
[root at localhost dev]# file hda1
hda1: block special (3/1)
[root at localhost dev]#

PS : No, alas!, I haven't managed to learn vi yet ...

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Neo-Redneck, Double Retiree,
Not Quite Clueless Linux Power User 
I have precious (very precious) little idea where up is.