-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 2014-06-21 22:13, Tony Alfrey wrote:
Let me just add one comment/question:
If the Windows drive will boot independently all by itself w/o any help from grub, why would grub need to /add/ anything to the Windows drive to boot it.
Because you need grub on the disk that is the first one in the BIOS boot order, regardless of where is Linux installed. Notice that things get very confusing if you try Linux install several times, and all are not exactly the same. You can get grub on several places.
Let me just add that this is the first time I've ever used grub. I've used LILO forever. All one does is map the drive numbers correctly in lilo.conf, run /sbin/lilo and you are done. Windows boots. IMHO, LILO is the simplest thing since sliced bread.
Yes, lilo is easier to understand and control, I agree. Some people here use it. But it has a severe disadvantage: that after a kernel update or some changes, if you forget to run "lilo", the system will be unbootable. With grub you never face this particular problem, grub has code to actually read the filesystem and find things. Lilo worked by hardcoding in the boot code the exact location of all the sectors that had to be loaded into memory in order to boot the system. Lilo boot code could not read files by name or path on its own: instead the "lilo" command, when run from inside the operating system, wrote the actual addresses of the sectors it needed to read. Thus a simple change, like copying a needed file again, would make lilo fail to boot. And openSUSE thought that it would be easier for its users to switch over to grub - normally it simply works and you don't ever have to touch it. Some years later, the grub developers stopped working on grub 1, and started writing grub2 instead. Some needed boot cases would simply not work with grub 1, so openSUSE devs had to add patches to grub 1 on their own, to support those cases. Finally, when grub 2 was mature enough, openSUSE again switched to grub 2, to simply make maintenance easier. Both lilo and grub 1 are still in the distribution, but as maintenance is minimal, there are situations that will not work. Notice that a machine with UEFI instead of BIOS does not need something as complex as grub2 (not even lilo). UEFI specification provides a menu for choosing what operating system to boot; you only need some simple code to boot it. So in some 5 years we could be using something else instead. Explanation over, my advise is to use grub 2 and forget about the others, because in the end it will make life easier for you. Yes, you have to learn new tricks. So do we us all. If you absolutely dislike grub 2, then use grub 1, which for the moment still works fine. In general, it is easier to use whatever the distribution sets as default, instead of insisting on your own choices, even if they are more familiar to you. You do not need to control everything the system does, not even know about it. Just learn to control the specific areas you really need for your work, in as much depth as you need, and leave the rest to the distribution automatics. Similar to driving a car: you do not need to know and control all the details about it, only some. Some people need lots of control and knowledge, some only need to drive it, and many levels in between :-) - -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iEYEARECAAYFAlOl8HcACgkQtTMYHG2NR9Ug/gCcCTn5P0vs1n8ffXuycuLoGyRk HmEAn07ac7W5L/bU7db+/h6pmvtokKj8 =SPTU -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org