Grub2Testing

Revision 30 as of 2009-05-29 08:35:55

Clear message

There is a desire always to ship the latest and greatest of any product; boot loaders included. However upgrading a bootloader is at best frightening and risky. The primary bootloader for x86 platforms is currently grub. That however has not been updated since about 1996 and is getting long in the tooth. It also does not support newer bios forms like EFI and it never will.

There is a replacement for grub, which has been claiming to be the replacement for it for some year (about 6 at least), grub2. Switching to this would bring support for newer systems, internationalisation, updates and bug fixes etc.

So its clear we would like to switch the default bootloader to grub2. It makes sense, its the way forward, why do we not just do it. Well does grub2 support every single machine out there. All those odd broken machines that grub supports? We do not know. Thats where this page comes in.

Testing grub2

If you are running Jaunty Jackalope or later, grub2 can be installed in parallel with, and as a chainloaded sub-bootloader of, your existing grub installation. This allows you to boot actually with grub and then select grub2 from the menu. The you can confirm grub2 works correctly before electing to switch to it formally.

Even if you are only able to test in chainloaded mode that would give us some information as to the viability of grub2.

Before you Test

Though it is unlikely you will have any issues we would always recommend taking precautions before attempting a bootloader update. It is recommended that you have an up to date backup of your system before attempting this (you have backups right?). It is also recommended that you have a bootable CD or a bootable memory stick available should you be unable to boot following the installation.

How to Install grub2

sudo apt-get install grub2

At the first prompt, select OK. Next, at the "Chainload from menu.lst" prompt answer "Yes". And at the "Linux command line:" prompt just press the Enter key.

This will install grub2 and modify the existing grub boot loader menu allow one to chain load grub2 to allow one to test to see if grub2 works on your machine. At this stage, the original grub is still the main boot loader and keeps the original boot menu items.

Note: There is currently a bug in the grub2 installer (LP#376879) where it modifies the existing grub configuration incorrectly. At the "Chainload into Grub 2" menu item, press 'e' to edit the configuration. Press 'e' a second time to edit the top boot line and change:

root   xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

to:

uuid   xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

and press the Enter key after editing this line. Then press 'b' to chainload and boot grub2.

Note: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx is your partition UUID number.

If one can boot from grub2 successfully, one can then install grub2 onto system as the main boot loader using the command:

sudo upgrade-from-grub-legacy

Alternative Test

If you do not want to install grub2 on your machine but you do want to see if it works with your BIOS, an alternative test is as follows:

bunzip2 bootable-grub2-2.5GB.img.bz2
  • Insert a 4GB or larger USB pen drive into your machine
  • Copy the image to the drive (assuming it appears as block device /dev/sdb, do the following):

sudo dd if=bootable-grub2-2.5GB.img of=/dev/sdb

WARNING: Make sure you are writing to the correct block device before proceeding!

  • Boot your machine with this image. If it boots OK, add your hardware to the list below. Note: This image boots from an ext3 partition.

Results

(Please add your machine in the correct alphabetical order)

NOTE: if you only test chainloaded, put UNTESTED in the native column.

Machine

Chainloaded

Native

Root Filesystem

Dual Boot

Root on LVM and/or MD

Acer Aspire One

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Inspiron 530

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Inspiron 535

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Inspiron 1420

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Inspiron 1525

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Inspiron 1545

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Inspiron 6400

PASS

PASS

ext3

Vista

Dell Mini 9

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Mini 10

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Mini 10v

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Latitude E6400

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Dell M1330

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Studio 1535

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Studio 1537

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Dell XPS M1530

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Studio 14xx

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Studio XPS 1340

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Dell Studio XPS 16xx

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Intel Quad Core self-build (AMI BIOS) [lana]

PASS

PASS

ext4

No

Intel Quad Core self-build (AMI BIOS) [chloe]

PASS

PASS

ext4

No

Lenovo 3000 N200

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Lenovo 3000 V100

Untested

PASS

ext3

No

Lenovo Ideapad S10

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Lenovo T61

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Lenovo X200

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Self-built, lshw, dmesg

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

No

Thinkpad T23

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

No

Thinkpad T23, lshw, dmesg

PASS

PASS

ext4

No

No

Thinkpad T30

PASS

PASS

ext3

No

Thinkpad T42P

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Thinkpad X301

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Thinkpad T60

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Thinkpad X61

PASS

PASS

ext3

Factory Vista repair/rescue, WinXP

Thinkpad X61T

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

VirtualBox

PASS

PASS

ext2

No

VirtualBox

PASS

PASS

ext3

Vista

VirtualBox

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Yes

VirtualBox

PASS

PASS

jfs

No

VirtualBox

PASS

PASS

reiserfs

No

VirtualBox

PASS

PASS

xfs

No

VMWare Workstation 6.5

UNTESTED

PASS

ext3

No

Xps1710

PASS

UNTESTED

ext4

No