[opensuse-factory] Anyone dualbooting 12.1 and 12.2?

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Martin Schlander

1 Jun 2012 1 Jun '12

16:15

Has anyone tried installing 12.2 beta (using grub2) in dualboot with an existing 12.1 system (using legacy grub)? If yes, does it work right out of the box? Is it seamless? (like traditionally dualbooting multiple openSUSE versions all using legacy grub). Anything I should be aware of? I'd like to test 12.2 beta on my real hardware, by installing it on my test partition. But I'm scared of being left unable to boot my 12.1 production system. So I'd be happy to hear if others have good (or bad) experiences with similar setups. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

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Martin Schlander

1 Jun 1 Jun

16:22

Fredag den 1. juni 2012 18:15:08 Martin Schlander skrev:

...

Has anyone tried installing 12.2 beta (using grub2) in dualboot with an existing 12.1 system (using legacy grub)?

If yes, does it work right out of the box? Is it seamless? (like traditionally dualbooting multiple openSUSE versions all using legacy grub). Anything I should be aware of?

I'd like to test 12.2 beta on my real hardware, by installing it on my test partition. But I'm scared of being left unable to boot my 12.1 production system. So I'd be happy to hear if others have good (or bad) experiences with similar setups.

I should probably have mentioned that the test partition is on an extended partition. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Felix Miata

17:31

On 2012/06/01 18:15 (GMT+0200) Martin Schlander composed:

...

Has anyone tried installing 12.2 beta (using grub2) in dualboot with an existing 12.1 system (using legacy grub)?

I don't dual boot. Dual means exactly and only two. I multiboot, which covers every instance of more than one. :-) I have more systems than I can keep track of with 11.4 and 12.1 and 12.2, besides earlier releases and other distros, and DOS, and OS/2, and Windows. But, I try not to let anything except *buntu install its own Grub2, and have only slipped up once, with Fedora 16 just two days ago. I never install any Grub to any MBR, ever. None of my 12.2 installs from M1 up thru B1 have produced a will not boot result.

...

If yes, does it work right out of the box? Is it seamless? (like traditionally

According to the mailing lists, not for everyone. e.g. http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2012-06/msg00004.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2012-06/msg00008.html and a bunch of forum messages.

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dualbooting multiple openSUSE versions all using legacy grub). Anything I should be aware of?

Fedora 15's Legacy Grub users cannot chainload from 15 to F16's or F17's Grub 2. I've yet to notice a parallel mention for openSUSE on the Factory or English lists.

...

I'd like to test 12.2 beta on my real hardware, by installing it on my test partition. But I'm scared of being left unable to boot my 12.1 production system. So I'd be happy to hear if others have good (or bad) experiences with similar setups.

As long as you don't write Grub 2 to the MBR like its upstream devs insist is the only place it should be installed, you should always be able to reach anything else from Grub Legacy, even if that means manually from a Grub prompt. What you see in menu.lst stanzas can be typed at a Grub prompt to boot any kernel/initrd you know to look for, regardless what Grubs are installed anywhere. The only catch with Legacy might possibly be with an older BIOS you may want a /boot or / that's out of reach above the LBA28 access limit. You do have the option in 12.2 to install Grub Legacy instead if you're truly afraid of losing production partition access. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Roman Bysh

22:14

On June 1, 2012 01:31:49 PM Felix Miata wrote:

...

On 2012/06/01 18:15 (GMT+0200) Martin Schlander composed:

...
Has anyone tried installing 12.2 beta (using grub2) in dualboot with an existing 12.1 system (using legacy grub)?

I don't dual boot. Dual means exactly and only two. I multiboot, which covers every instance of more than one. :-)

I have more systems than I can keep track of with 11.4 and 12.1 and 12.2, besides earlier releases and other distros, and DOS, and OS/2, and Windows. But, I try not to let anything except *buntu install its own Grub2, and have only slipped up once, with Fedora 16 just two days ago. I never install any Grub to any MBR, ever.

None of my 12.2 installs from M1 up thru B1 have produced a will not boot result.

...
If yes, does it work right out of the box? Is it seamless? (like traditionally According to the mailing lists, not for everyone.

e.g. http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2012-06/msg00004.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2012-06/msg00008.html and a bunch of forum messages.

...
dualbooting multiple openSUSE versions all using legacy grub). Anything I should be aware of?

Fedora 15's Legacy Grub users cannot chainload from 15 to F16's or F17's Grub 2. I've yet to notice a parallel mention for openSUSE on the Factory or English lists.

...
I'd like to test 12.2 beta on my real hardware, by installing it on my test partition. But I'm scared of being left unable to boot my 12.1 production system. So I'd be happy to hear if others have good (or bad) experiences with similar setups.

As long as you don't write Grub 2 to the MBR like its upstream devs insist is the only place it should be installed, you should always be able to reach anything else from Grub Legacy, even if that means manually from a Grub prompt. What you see in menu.lst stanzas can be typed at a Grub prompt to boot any kernel/initrd you know to look for, regardless what Grubs are installed anywhere. The only catch with Legacy might possibly be with an older BIOS you may want a /boot or / that's out of reach above the LBA28 access limit.

You do have the option in 12.2 to install Grub Legacy instead if you're truly afraid of losing production partition access.

I can dual boot with 12.1 with Grub1 and 12.2 Beta 1 with Grub2. Cheers! Roman ----------------------------------------------------- openSUSE -- Get it! Discover it! Share it! ----------------------------------------------------- http://linuxcounter.net/ #179293 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Michael Chang

6 Jun 6 Jun

07:48

2012/6/2 Felix Miata :

...

On 2012/06/01 18:15 (GMT+0200) Martin Schlander composed:

...

Fedora 15's Legacy Grub users cannot chainload from 15 to F16's or F17's Grub 2. I've yet to notice a parallel mention for openSUSE on the Factory or English lists.

One possibility is the boot sector is empty, due to FC's grub2 not support installing to partition boot sector? Would you point me to those list? I'm quite interested. :)

...

As long as you don't write Grub 2 to the MBR like its upstream devs insist is the only place it should be installed, you should always be able to reach anything else from Grub Legacy, even if that means manually from a Grub prompt. What you see in menu.lst stanzas can be typed at a Grub prompt to boot any kernel/initrd you know to look for, regardless what Grubs are installed anywhere. The only catch with Legacy might possibly be with an older BIOS you may want a /boot or / that's out of reach above the LBA28 access limit.

I could tell that the transition from legacy grub to grub2 is very conservative. We don't drop any scenario to make grub2 work .. instead we try to keep as much as possible we offered for legacy grub. So openSUSE don't force you to follow upstream to install on MBR, you still follow the same proposed settings for legacy Grub and they work transparently for Grub2. You are also free to change setting .. although they are not guarantee to always work. :) The purpose of the transition is not to have you disappoint to drop your scenarios you used to with legacy grub. What we want is a living upstream, better support for file systems/multi-path and a better configuration systems and so on .. those won't conflict with the usability. So if you found anything deficiency for Gurb2 that legacy Grub could offer, please feel free to file a bug. :) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Felix Miata

09:04

On 2012/06/06 15:48 (GMT+0800) Michael Chang composed:

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Felix Miata composed:

...

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Fedora 15's Legacy Grub users cannot chainload from 15 to F16's or F17's Grub 2. I've yet to notice a parallel mention for openSUSE on the Factory or English lists.

...

One possibility is the boot sector is empty, due to FC's grub2 not support installing to partition boot sector?

...

Would you point me to those list? I'm quite interested. :)

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2012-April/106994.html https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=804835

...

So if you found anything deficiency for Gurb2 that legacy Grub could offer, please feel free to file a bug. :)

I've been subscribed to the help-grub mailing list for several years, which results in a lot of bug mail from Grub's bug tracker, in addition to help mail traffic. Grub 2 development seems to have proceeded much like KDE4. Grub 2.0 appears to be about where KDE 4.0 was, or maybe 4.2 or 4.3, considerably short of 4.8, which for many KDE3 users still isn't good enough. Grub 2 changes are also rather radical, including incompatible naming and menus. There remains too much to be done for me to attempt to use Grub 2 at all, as there's nothing I need from Grub Legacy that it cannot provide. I have no EFI or LVM systems. I don't encrypt partitions. With RAID I put Grub on non-RAID /boot partitions. I have upwards of 30 operable systems, nearly all of which are multiboot, and work satisfactorily with Grub Legacy, and in many cases, IBM Boot Manager as primary bootloader. Grub 2 is a mini OS that needs to be coupled to an installed OS, where many files and scripts must live, unlike Grub Legacy. With Legacy, I can boot a live media, copy a small handful of files to a HD partition, make a menu.lst and device.map there, and install to a partition from a Grub prompt, leaving me a working bootloader on that HD, even though no OS has yet been installed. Nothing like that simplicity is possible with Grub 2. For the best possible user experience, I suggest investigating use of AiR-Boot as an alternative to Grub 2 for those whose needs cannot be met via Grub Legacy, and considering the possibility that for some common environments Grub Legacy may indefinitely remain preferable to Grub 2. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Hendrik Woltersdorf

15:45

Am 06.06.2012 11:04, schrieb Felix Miata:

...

I've been subscribed to the help-grub mailing list for several years, which results in a lot of bug mail from Grub's bug tracker, in addition to help mail traffic.

Grub 2 development seems to have proceeded much like KDE4. Grub 2.0 appears to be about where KDE 4.0 was, or maybe 4.2 or 4.3, considerably short of 4.8, which for many KDE3 users still isn't good enough.

Grub 2 changes are also rather radical, including incompatible naming and menus. There remains too much to be done for me to attempt to use Grub 2 at all, as there's nothing I need from Grub Legacy that it cannot provide. I have no EFI or LVM systems. I don't encrypt partitions. With RAID I put Grub on non-RAID /boot partitions. I have upwards of 30 operable systems, nearly all of which are multiboot, and work satisfactorily with Grub Legacy, and in many cases, IBM Boot Manager as primary bootloader.

Grub 2 is a mini OS that needs to be coupled to an installed OS, where many files and scripts must live, unlike Grub Legacy. With Legacy, I can boot a live media, copy a small handful of files to a HD partition, make a menu.lst and device.map there, and install to a partition from a Grub prompt, leaving me a working bootloader on that HD, even though no OS has yet been installed. Nothing like that simplicity is possible with Grub 2.

For the best possible user experience, I suggest investigating use of AiR-Boot as an alternative to Grub 2 for those whose needs cannot be met via Grub Legacy, and considering the possibility that for some common environments Grub Legacy may indefinitely remain preferable to Grub 2.

I have 12.2 with grub2 and 12.1 with grub legacy running on a laptop, I use for testing. Chainloading works so far with some minor issues with plymouth/nomodeset/disk encryption. After I enabled plymouth (set theme, ... mkinitrd ...), it works without these problems; at least for me. regards, Hendrik -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Roman Bysh

16:05

On 06/06/2012 03:48 AM, Michael Chang wrote:

...

2012/6/2 Felix Miata:

...
On 2012/06/01 18:15 (GMT+0200) Martin Schlander composed:

...
Fedora 15's Legacy Grub users cannot chainload from 15 to F16's or F17's Grub 2. I've yet to notice a parallel mention for openSUSE on the Factory or English lists.

One possibility is the boot sector is empty, due to FC's grub2 not support installing to partition boot sector?

Would you point me to those list? I'm quite interested. :)

...
As long as you don't write Grub 2 to the MBR like its upstream devs insist is the only place it should be installed, you should always be able to reach anything else from Grub Legacy, even if that means manually from a Grub prompt. What you see in menu.lst stanzas can be typed at a Grub prompt to boot any kernel/initrd you know to look for, regardless what Grubs are installed anywhere. The only catch with Legacy might possibly be with an older BIOS you may want a /boot or / that's out of reach above the LBA28 access limit.

I could tell that the transition from legacy grub to grub2 is very conservative. We don't drop any scenario to make grub2 work .. instead we try to keep as much as possible we offered for legacy grub.

So openSUSE don't force you to follow upstream to install on MBR, you still follow the same proposed settings for legacy Grub and they work transparently for Grub2. You are also free to change setting .. although they are not guarantee to always work. :)

The purpose of the transition is not to have you disappoint to drop your scenarios you used to with legacy grub. What we want is a living upstream, better support for file systems/multi-path and a better configuration systems and so on .. those won't conflict with the usability.

So if you found anything deficiency for Gurb2 that legacy Grub could offer, please feel free to file a bug. :)

Grub1 never detected the Recovery Mode in neither version of openSUSE. That is when I had 11.4 on Primary and 12.1 on Extended. However, when I had 12.1 on Primary and 12.2 Beta 1 on Extended. When I disabled the images in Beta 1 ----- >> I ran grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg on Beta 1. Grub2 detected my Grub1 entries including my 12.1 Recovery Mode. Cheers! Roman --------------------------------------------------------------- openSUSE -- Get it! Discover it! Share it! --------------------------------------------------------------- http://linuxcounter.net/ #179293 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Martin Schlander

5 Jun 5 Jun

20:05

Fredag den 1. juni 2012 18:15:08 Martin Schlander skrev:

...

Has anyone tried installing 12.2 beta (using grub2) in dualboot with an existing 12.1 system (using legacy grub)?

If yes, does it work right out of the box? Is it seamless? (like traditionally dualbooting multiple openSUSE versions all using legacy grub). Anything I should be aware of?

I'd like to test 12.2 beta on my real hardware, by installing it on my test partition. But I'm scared of being left unable to boot my 12.1 production system. So I'd be happy to hear if others have good (or bad) experiences with similar setups.

In case anyone else has these concerns. In the end I decided to install 12.2beta with legacy-grub and dual-booting with 12.1 worked without any issues. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Constant Brouerius van Nidek

6 Jun 6 Jun

02:17

On Tuesday, June 05, 2012 10:05:07 PM Martin Schlander wrote:

...

Fredag den 1. juni 2012 18:15:08 Martin Schlander skrev:

...
Has anyone tried installing 12.2 beta (using grub2) in dualboot with an existing 12.1 system (using legacy grub)?

If yes, does it work right out of the box? Is it seamless? (like traditionally dualbooting multiple openSUSE versions all using legacy grub). Anything I should be aware of?

I'd like to test 12.2 beta on my real hardware, by installing it on my test partition. But I'm scared of being left unable to boot my 12.1 production system. So I'd be happy to hear if others have good (or bad) experiences with similar setups.

In case anyone else has these concerns. In the end I decided to install 12.2beta with legacy-grub and dual-booting with 12.1 worked without any issues.

Same here. There seems to be not enough experience with grub2 for the time being. -- Linux User 183145 using KDE4 on a Pentium IV , powered by openSUSE 12.1 (i586) Kernel: 3.4.0-26-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.8.3 (4.8.3) "release 504") 09:16am up 13:18, 3 users, load average: 2.09, 1.81, 1.73 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Michael Chang

04:54

On Wed, Jun 06, 2012 at 09:17:31AM +0700, Constant Brouerius van Nidek wrote:

...

On Tuesday, June 05, 2012 10:05:07 PM Martin Schlander wrote:

...
Fredag den 1. juni 2012 18:15:08 Martin Schlander skrev:

...
Has anyone tried installing 12.2 beta (using grub2) in dualboot with an existing 12.1 system (using legacy grub)?

If yes, does it work right out of the box? Is it seamless? (like traditionally dualbooting multiple openSUSE versions all using legacy grub). Anything I should be aware of?

I'd like to test 12.2 beta on my real hardware, by installing it on my test partition. But I'm scared of being left unable to boot my 12.1 production system. So I'd be happy to hear if others have good (or bad) experiences with similar setups.

In case anyone else has these concerns. In the end I decided to install 12.2beta with legacy-grub and dual-booting with 12.1 worked without any issues.

Same here. There seems to be not enough experience with grub2 for the time being.

We have many bug reports on 12.2beta that grub2 is broken if you enable installation from images. Unfortunately it's default enabled so you have to disable it to get everything to work (not only grub2 is affected, but many packages is deleted after image deployment.)

...

From my experience I could tell you it should work, at least my testing covers it. But still the sample is not considered enough though. :/

Thanks, Michael

...

-- Linux User 183145 using KDE4 on a Pentium IV , powered by openSUSE 12.1 (i586) Kernel: 3.4.0-26-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.8.3 (4.8.3) "release 504") 09:16am up 13:18, 3 users, load average: 2.09, 1.81, 1.73

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Martin Schlander

17:34

Onsdag den 6. juni 2012 12:54:56 Michael Chang skrev:

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On Wed, Jun 06, 2012 at 09:17:31AM +0700, Constant Brouerius van Nidek wrote:

...
On Tuesday, June 05, 2012 10:05:07 PM Martin Schlander wrote:

...
In case anyone else has these concerns. In the end I decided to install 12.2beta with legacy-grub and dual-booting with 12.1 worked without any issues.

Same here. There seems to be not enough experience with grub2 for the time being.

We have many bug reports on 12.2beta that grub2 is broken if you enable installation from images. Unfortunately it's default enabled so you have to disable it to get everything to work (not only grub2 is affected, but many packages is deleted after image deployment.)

From my experience I could tell you it should work, at least my testing covers it. But still the sample is not considered enough though.

I installed from liveusb, I guess the images issue only exists with the dvd? With grub2 the "Installation Overview" did not mention any alternative boot loader sections, so I didn't want to take any chances and just went with legacy-grub which told me it would create a section for my 12.1. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org

Michael Chang

7 Jun 7 Jun

04:01

On Wed, Jun 06, 2012 at 07:34:07PM +0200, Martin Schlander wrote:

...

Onsdag den 6. juni 2012 12:54:56 Michael Chang skrev:

...
On Wed, Jun 06, 2012 at 09:17:31AM +0700, Constant Brouerius van Nidek wrote:

...
On Tuesday, June 05, 2012 10:05:07 PM Martin Schlander wrote:

...
In case anyone else has these concerns. In the end I decided to install 12.2beta with legacy-grub and dual-booting with 12.1 worked without any issues.

Same here. There seems to be not enough experience with grub2 for the time being.

We have many bug reports on 12.2beta that grub2 is broken if you enable installation from images. Unfortunately it's default enabled so you have to disable it to get everything to work (not only grub2 is affected, but many packages is deleted after image deployment.)

From my experience I could tell you it should work, at least my testing covers it. But still the sample is not considered enough though.

I installed from liveusb, I guess the images issue only exists with the dvd?

With grub2 the "Installation Overview" did not mention any alternative boot loader sections, so I didn't want to take any chances and just went with legacy-grub which told me it would create a section for my 12.1.

We should improve the grub2's summary page to display more equivalent informations with legacy grub. They are not displayed but actually works. Thanks.

...

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Graham Anderson

00:25

On Friday 01 Jun 2012 18:15:08 Martin Schlander wrote:

...

Has anyone tried installing 12.2 beta (using grub2) in dualboot with an existing 12.1 system (using legacy grub)?

If yes, does it work right out of the box? Is it seamless? (like traditionally dualbooting multiple openSUSE versions all using legacy grub). Anything I should be aware of?

After dd'ing a few things into backup, I installed 12.2 Beta 1 as a physical installation alongside everything else. Other than changing the default suggested partition scheme I let the install run it's course, grub2 and all. I was not expecting any trouble and I didn't encounter any other than the 12.2 specific installation bugs. openSUSE 12.1, Debian, Fedora and Windows were all gracefully recognised. I can't comment on the functionality that provides booting from luks or lvm because my luks and lvm volumes are data rather than system volumes.

...

I'd like to test 12.2 beta on my real hardware, by installing it on my test partition. But I'm scared of being left unable to boot my 12.1 production system. So I'd be happy to hear if others have good (or bad) experiences with similar setups.

I've yet to encounter even Windows installer butchering without promt partition tables. What's the worst case? MBR code doesn't point to grub?

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participants (7)

Constant Brouerius van Nidek
Felix Miata
Graham Anderson
Hendrik Woltersdorf
Martin Schlander
Michael Chang
Roman Bysh