[Gllug] installing grub on the Mbr

[Bruce Richardson]

On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 10:19:00AM +0000, Anthony wrote:
> Extended partitions aren't generally regarded as bootable, as I assume
> the difference is that they are missing parts that primary partitions
> have, but I admit that I've never tried it.

To mark a partition as bootable means updating an embedded table in the
MBR.  That table only has room for the old IBM partitioning scheme and
simply doesn't understand anything else.

> 
> Booting across devices seems to be a bit of a black art anyway,
> especially where Windows or SCSI is involved. I can usually make it work
> with LILO (I detest GRUB for some reason), but only after many horrible
> hours of failure :-)

The only real problem with GRUB is the very poor documentation.  If you
take the time to learn how it actually works, it is a much, much more
capable boot loader and booting across devices stops being a black art.
I sweated some blood learning how to use GRUB properly but I would not
go back to LILO.

> 
> I'd probably regard MBR installation as a last resort for machines which
> won't work otherwise

If you only run one OS on a box (and I long ago gave up dual booting)
the it's not really an issue.  Otherwise I'd agree with that.  I have
encountered machines which would crash on shutdown if the bootloader
(whether GRUB or LILO) was not installed to the MBR, but not for a
while.

-- 
Bruce

A problem shared brings the consolation that someone else is now
feeling as miserable as you.
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