argh, grub woes

[Collins Richey]

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 19:45:58 -0600, Alma J Wetzker <almaw at ieee.org> wrote:
> Bruce Marshall wrote:
> 

> 
> 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.
> 

I have a very old gentoo system, so at some time they put in a
menu.lst symlink. As I said earlier, grub will use either grub.conf or
menu.lst (needed for floppy boot disks on dos filesystem). One or the
other must be present for successful setup and successful boot (but
see below). I'm pretty sure that systems that use /etc for the conf
files must have a symlink in /boot/grub and /etc must be on the same
filesystem

Interestingly enough, the 'info grub' documentation no longer refers
to anything but grub.conf, but from personal experience I know that
menu.lst works on a floppy boot disk. There is also an option for a
"present menu list" that can be used if no grub.conf file is present.
I've never tried this.

HTH,

-- 
 Collins