argh, grub woes

[Alma J Wetzker]

Bruce Marshall wrote:
> On Thursday 25 November 2004 02:18 pm, Collins Richey wrote:
> 
>>On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 14:13:30 -0500, Bruce Marshall <bmarsh at bmarsh.com> 
> 
> wrote:
> 
>>>On Thursday 25 November 2004 02:06 pm, Collins Richey wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 12:47:31 -0500, dep <dep at linuxandmain.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>quoth Net Llama!:
>>>>>| > Could it be looking for grub.conf?
>>>>>|
>>>>>| maybe, but i can't see why.  it exists in /boot/grub/ (which points
>>>>>| to /etc/grub.conf)
>>>>>
>>>>>is /etc on the same partition?
>>>>
>>>>That's where I was going. I've never seen a setup where everything
>>>>grub needs is not in /boot/grub (regardless or not whether /boot is a
>>>>separate partition. I presume from what you said earlier that
>>>>/boot/grub.conf is a symlink to /etc/grub.conf. This must be something
>>>>of a Redhatism. I would eliminate the symlink and copy /etc/grub.conf
>>>>to /boot/grub.conf. That's the only "sane" setup that I'm aware of.
>>>
>>>As far as I am aware.....  grub.conf is only used for install..... 
>>>nothing else.
>>
>>I disagree. grub.conf and/or menu.lst in the older grub must be
>>available at boot time to build the menu list of bootable systems.
>>That's why you don't have to run grub after modifying the conf as is
>>the case with lilo. At install time, grub stores its own pointer to
>>the "root" you have specified so that it can find the conf when you
>>boot.
> 
> 
> And I'll raise your disagree.....    I have always had a /etc/grub.conf  (even 
> in the last Caldera release I think) and it was all about install and nothing 
> about actually booting.  On SuSE it is still in /etc/grub/conf and does not 
> need to be present for boot.
> 
> If you are saying that if I rename it, I can't boot, I'll bet a 6-pack of your 
> favorite beer on it....
> 
> Yes, there does need to be a menu.lst.

On my gentoo system, there is no menu.lst.  AFAIK, /boot/grub/grub.conf is the 
only file required anymore.  That file is read at boot.  grub.conf contains 
the menu, and boot parameters for each menu choice, it can be changed manually 
during the boot process.  If it is not there, you boot to a grub prompt and 
have to enter all the boot parameters by hand to get a working system.

(menu.lst == grub.conf) is true

Some distro's attempt to put all the configuration files in the /etc directory 
(a sane desire).  The file still needs to be in the /grub directory of the 
boot partition in order to get a booting system.

     -- Alma