Boot into Ubuntu Mate - How? Now Debian. (Solved)

[Mercedes350se]

I thought that an easy option would be to install Ubuntu Mate on what was sda4. All seemed to go well until an error message popped up saying something like 'could not install grub to /dev/sda' 'Fatal error'. I finished up in a "Live session".
I now have, according to pMount, no sda4 instead I have sda5, 6 and 7. I have tried editing menu.lst pointing to vmlinuz and initrd.img (on sda7) but no joy. I also tried the chainloader +1 method as well and again no joy.

[mikewalsh]

@Mercedes350se :-

I think the way to do this, if memory serves from past experience, would be for you to recreate sda4 as it was before this started.

You have sda5, 6, & 7 because you now have an extended partition, with sda5, 6, & 7 as 'logical' partitions within; standard MBR BIOS only supports 4 'primary' partitions, but you can make number 4 an extended one, then put any number of logicals inside it. This is what the Ubuntu Mate installer has done, y'see. When deleting these, remember to delete in reverse order; you can't delete the extended partition until the logicals have all been removed.

(Sda4 is not showing at the moment because it is an extended partition. These are never shown, since they are only a 'container' for 'logicals'. Primary and logical partitions WILL show.)

Once you've removed all that lot, re-create sda4 as it was previously.

--------------------------------------------------------

Install Ubuntu Mate to sda4, and when it asks where to locate the bootloader, select the same partition (sda4 again). This all needs to be done via the "something else" option in the installer.

THEN you can use the chainloader "+1" trick.

I did it this way with an install of AntiX to a flash drive some time ago. When setting up the chainloader stanza in Grub4DOS, I had the flash-drive plugged-in, obviously.....so that I could set the UUID of the drive. Ever afterwards, I was able to plug the AntiX flashdrive in when I wanted to use it, and select it from the main boot Menu.

Let us know if that helps.

Mike.

[Clarity]

Hello "Mate"

@Mercedes350se, Couple of questions:

• Which Mate version?

• How was your HDD/SSD layout before you started to run the install utility ; namely MSDOS or GPT?

• What were the partitions before you started?

• Did ANY partitions have "flag(s)" before you began?

• Are you trying to install to a BIOS or UEFI PC?

• Intel/AMD?

Since Ubuntu allows to run similar to PUPs where you can merely save your sessions, it that an option that appeals to you?

[Mercedes350se]

@mikewalsh:-

Getting somewhere -- I think ..

Started again from the beginning with a sda4 partition and did the "Something else" install. I still have the sda4 partition, Yey! but ..

If I have in my menu.lst:

Code: Select all

  title Ubuntu Mate
  root (hd0,3)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz
  initrd /boot/initrd.img

I get Error 17: cannot mount selected partition.

If I change the menu.lst to:

Code: Select all

  title Ubuntu Mate
  rootnoverify (hd0,3)
  chainloader +1

I get Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format.

[Mercedes350se]

@Clarity,

Answering you questions in order:

• 21.04

• MSDOS

• I had 4 partitions

• No

• BIOS - UEFI is supported

• Intel i5-4570S CPU @ 2.90GHz

[mikewalsh]

@mikewalsh:-

Getting somewhere -- I think ..

Started again from the beginning with a sda4 partition and did the "Something else" install. I still have the sda4 partition, Yey! but ..

If I have in my menu.lst:

Code: Select all

  title Ubuntu Mate
  root (hd0,3)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz
  initrd /boot/initrd.img

I get Error 17: cannot mount selected partition.

If I change the menu.lst to:

Code: Select all

  title Ubuntu Mate
  rootnoverify (hd0,3)
  chainloader +1

I get Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format.

Mm. Did you in fact select that same partition as the location for the boot-loader?

Mike.

[Mercedes350se]

Initial attempt I selected /dev/sda4. That didn't work.

Next attempt was to select /dev/sda. That didn't work.

I should add that whatever I do at the "partitioning" stage I get an error message saying that I need a EFI partition of at least 35MB. I have tried to create this partition but then I get another error message about no root something or other ...

I have tried to follow these steps but instead of getting the /home step I get the errors mentioned in the above paragraph.

https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/install ... method/651

***********That site does not show in my desktop so be aware****************

[Mercedes350se]

Install Ubuntu Mate to sda4, and when it asks where to locate the bootloader, select the same partition (sda4 again). This all needs to be done via the "something else" option in the installer.

THEN you can use the chainloader "+1" trick.

Mike.

I have tried again ... Unfortunately I had a brain fart and put the bootloader in sda so now the machine quite happily boots the Ubuntu install but none of the puppies.
This is with Legacy set in the BIOS ...

So now I have problems.
1. How to restore the machine so that it boots the puppies also using the BIOS Legacy setting (as it did previously), and,
2 then try the "chainloader "+1" trick",or,
3. some other menu.lst entry(ies) to get the whole lot working

[mikewalsh]

@Mercedes350se :-

Y'know, I owe you an apology. I've been leading you astray with this advice, because this was NOT how I installed AntiX at all!

I remember now why I've never mixed "mainstream" distros & Puppies on the same drive. Mainstream distros require GRUB2, and I came to Puppy to get away from GRUB2, because I absolutely loathe it, and detest working with it. It's way too complicated for its own good.

What I did was to install AntiX to a fast, USB 3.0 flash drive. In years gone by, this would not have been a good idea; unlike Puppies, which work in RAM, mainstream distros are written to expect to find themselves on a hard drive, and are constantly writing to/reading from the media on which they're installed. Older NAND flash was nowhere near as resilient as it is today, and this would have been a recipe for wearing-out your flash drive in record time!

Modern USB 3.0/3.1/3.2 drives are pretty near as resilient as SSDs nowadays.

---------------------------------

The other reason was that to mix Pups and other distros on the same drive, you pretty much HAVE to use GRUB2.....and, as previously stated, I hate it. The reason being that if you want to stick with Grub4DOS as your bootloader, you then need to make use of what I believe is called the PBR, or Partition Boot Record, and I never could figure out usage of this item.

So; if you install your distro to a good-quality modern flash-drive, you can then tell the bootloader to install GRUB2 to the root of that drive. It will install to the flash-drive's MBR; following which, you can then use the "chainloader +1" trick from your Grub4DOS Puppy boot Menu. And this does work.

Sorry for misleading you. It wasn't intentional! Last night, I was looking at the ZorinOS install I've kept on a flash drive for years, and realised where my advice was wrong. So I thought I'd better inform you....

Sorry..!

Mike.

[Mercedes350se]

No worries. All a learning curve. If/when I find the solution I will post it

[Clarity]

Hi @Mercedes350se

I am a little confused, but that is not all that abnormal.

Neither Ubuntu nor modern PUPs use menu.lst. In fact, Ubuntu and its derivatives have not use old GRUB for many years.

In Today distros, GRUB2 uses grub.cfg and PUPs also carry a loopback.cfg to make ISO file booting easy as does Ubuntu.

What did you do to switch the boot-loader?

I also have a simple solution which gets around the current boot problem you appear seem to b having, but you'll need to PM for that.

[Mercedes350se]

OK an update. I decided, for a number of reasons I didn't like Ubuntu Mate. So back to the beginning and downloaded/installed Debian 11 to sda4. During the install process there was some mention of "Legacy" so went with that. Long story short it booted. Then came attempts to boot the other puppies. Following a Youtube vid I was able to boot my main Puppy install via the grub.cfg file using a "40_custom" file entry . At this stage another Puppy was showing in the boot menu as "Unidentified blah, blah (on sda1)". This, too, booted so far so good.

The issue I have now is that I have other puppies, in their own directories, on sda3 that, so far, have defied all attempts to boot. The closest is a kernel panic 'cause "it" cannot find initrd. Again I am using the 40_custom file - with additional menuentry series of commands.

My opinion of Grub2 is at this stage reserved.

@Clarity, I have frugal installed both Fossa64 and Bionic64 which booted from the menu.lst - well they did until I fixed the machine till it broke.

So my question, now, is, "What are the commands, for the 40_custom file, so that other puppies, in their own directories on sda3 will boot?".

[Jafadmin]

For future reference ..

If you are already booting a puppy HD with Grub4Dos (which uses menu.lst) there is no need to replace the bootloader with grub2 to load Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc. G4D handles this quite well.

This biggest problem I witness is that folks want to add an OS to an existing boot drive, then allow the newest install to overwrite the existing bootloader. This creates many headaches getting back to the configuration you envisioned.

The solution is to install the new OS to it's desired partition, but DO NOT install a bootloader for it. The disk already has one. This is true whether you are adding puppy to a Debian disk, or adding Debian to a puppy disk. Either bootloader (Grub4Dos, or Grub2) will boot both.

Code: Select all

menu.lst stanzas: (Note that Grub4Dos uses "kernel" to locate vmlinuz)

title BionicPup64
  uuid 16d967c5-c906-42f5-bc3f-61782a7ad758
  kernel /BionicPup64/vmlinuz   psubdir=BionicPup64 pmedia=ataflash pfix=fsck
  initrd /BionicPup64/initrd.gz 

title Linux Mint
  kernel /Path/to/vmlinuz root=/ ro quiet splash
  initrd /Path/to/initrd.img


grub.cfg stanzas: (Note that Grub uses "linux" to locate vmlinuz)

menuentry 'Bionic64' {
	linux	/Bionic64/vmlinuz   psubdir=Bionic64 pmedia=ataflash pfix=fsck
	initrd	/Bionic64/initrd.gz
}

menuentry 'Linux Mint 20 MATE' {
	linux	/Path/to/vmlinuz root=/ ro  quiet splash 
	initrd	/Path/to/initrd.img
}

[mikewalsh]

@Jafadmin :-

Jafa.....thank you. I knew there was a way of doing it; it never occurred to me that you CAN tell the installer not to bother with a bootloader. I'd completely forgotten that; I'd also forgotten what a fuss they usually make when you decide that, too..! It's a while since I've bothered with mainstream distros.

And I wasn't aware it was quite as simple as your example...

Clarity is absolutely dead-set on recommending GRUB2 to everyone. I hate it; always have done. I just love the simple ease-of-use you get with Grub4DOS; have done ever since I first used it.

Cheers for that! Appreciated.

Mike.

[Mercedes350se]

My very short term experience with Grub2 gives me the same opinion as that of mikewalsh - sucks big time!!!

@Jafadmin, (How do I make this a nice colour?)

OK how do I back track my mess - and still boot my puppies and Debian 11?

[Clarity]

GRUB2 is built into modern PUPs & DOGs for some very good reasons. All that I have done is offer a pathway to get directly to desktop. No one has to "touch" anything except to insert the USB with the downloaded PUP to get to a PUP Menu and the PUP's desktop.

But some will anger at the ability that is built into current PUPs.

Mike is calling out an attempt to discourage members at something already in today's PUPs, IMHO. I am not sure why he feels the need to target me for what is built-into PUPs & DOGs today.

The paths I have offered does NOT cause any discomfort in the path. You merely download your modern PUP to a USB and directly boot to a PUPDOG desktop. NO issues, no need to interfere, no need to write to media, no issues with partitioning, nothing.

Anyone who has already tried it knows the benefit of having to get to desktop within to run PUPPY linux in exactly the same way one does today...meaning you save your sessions the same and you get the same PUP menu when you boot.

Sorry Mike that you continue to try bashing me in offering a pathway to a PUP desktop with no more effort than downloading the PUP. None of what I have offered involves GRUB2, directly. It involves a pathway to get to a PUP's Menu screen to boot to desktop.

If you like the current PUPs and you are happy with what development has provided, I support the efforts to use for PUPs and DOGs here on the forum.

Here is the simple pathway: Make the USB it prescribes once in your lifetime. Use it to boot PUPs and DOGs forever, just as WoofCE development has provided.

I've done the heavy lifting to make this all too simple for users. ANYONE who has a problem with its operations please post on that thread. Others who use it know that it works.

Its intent is to make it simple and to minimize problems seen over time with booting PUPs & DOGs for many varied reasons. In this case, if you can make its USB, you are done! From that point onward you merely download your ISOs to your USB and boot. That's all it does. No need to interact with any boot manager except the one that ships with PUPPY linux unless you have a desire to change what ships with PUPPY.

And please Mike, give up with your bashing. I merely offer a productivity solution...not a product.

[Clarity]

When @Mercedes350se opened this thread, he had a problem after installing a distro that affected his ability to run his PUPs.

On the internet, I know of a Youtube video solution to that very same environment with the distro he had used.

But, subsequently he changed distro and the video would NOT have been an "apples to apples" set of instructions.

[Mercedes350se]

@Clarity,
Grub2 seems to be "progress for progress sake". How to get rid of it is all over the 'net like a rash. I am not interested in its "supposed" merits. I just want something easy to modify as and if needed - not the multi-stage BS that Grub2 requires.

[mikewalsh]

@Clarity :-

Nobody is "bashing", you, least of all me. Or at least, I'm sorry if that's the way it appears.

Right from the very beginning, I've disliked GRUB2's horrendous over-complexity, with seemingly a redundant 'fall-back' mode for absolutely everything, topped off by 'redundancies FOR the redundancies" together with a predilection for re-probing & re-checking everything over & over again, every time it runs. And then when it updates, it throws everything else that doesn't normally use it out again......

And despite trying SUPERGRUB2 several times, it point-blank refuses to work with this machine. I'll give anything a fair crack of the whip, but even after endlessly fiddling with UEFI BIOS settings, it just doesn't want to know. Kinda re-inforces my low opinion of it to begin with, y'know?

I appreciate you're taking the view that since every other Linux distro apparently uses it nowadays, sooner or later Puppy is going to HAVE to. But I came to Puppy to get away from the mainstream's desire to automate things to such a degree that a large amount of control was removed from users, giving them less choice, not MORE.

Let's agree to disagree on this one, shall we?

Mike.

[Jafadmin]

@mikewalsh ,

The hyper-complex grub.cfg you see with the Canonical, et al distros isn't necessary. It exists so that those distros can modify the initramfs on-the-fly and update the grub.cfg accordingly. It also provides the requisite eye candy boot screens those distros absolutely require.

I personally never allow an OS to directly modify the boot files after install. Instead I create a symlink to the simple-grub.cfg I wish to use, and mv the new grub.cfg off to the side.

This is a real 'simple-grub.cfg' I use to boot Mint, Puppy, and a Clonezilla ISO.

UUID is fake, of course ..

simple-grub.cfg:

Code: Select all

# simple-grub.cfg
#
# see /boot/grub in Debian for original
#
#	mv grub.cfg grub-new.cfg
#	ln -rs simple-grup.cfg grub.cfg
#
set default=0
set timeout=5
set menu_color_normal=yellow/green
set menu_color_highlight=blue/green

# Debian boot
menuentry 'Linux Mint 18.3 MATE 64-bit' {
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-4.10.0-38-generic root=UUID=70f0127f-313c-4979-94fc-acfae353b071 ro  quiet splash
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-4.10.0-38-generic
}

# Puppy boot
menuentry 'BionicPup64' {
	linux	/BionicPup64/vmlinuz pdrv=70f0127f-313c-4979-94fc-acfae353b071 psubdir=/BionicPup64 pmedia=ataflash pfix=fsck
	initrd	/BionicPup64/initrd.gz
}

# Clonezilla ISO boot
menuentry "Clonezilla live 2.6.7-30 amd64" {
	set isofile="/grub/clonezilla-live-2.6.7-30-amd64.iso"
	loopback loop $isofile
	linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=live live-config noswap nolocales quiet edd=on nomodeset ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_keymap="" ocs_live_batch="no" ocs_lang="" ip=frommedia toram=filesystem.squashfs findiso=$isofile
	initrd (loop)/live/initrd.img
}

# etc ..
submenu 'Advanced options ' {
		menuentry 'Reboot computer' {
		reboot
	}
	menuentry 'Halt computer' {
		halt
	}
}

[Mercedes350se]

Preamble:

My machine is a Dell Optiplex 9020. It replaced my home built unit because it was 32 bit and took up most of the available desk space - the Dell mounts on the back of the monitor. The Dell has been working quite well for a long time. It is currently set up in Legacy Mode with boot order USB then hard drive - actually a SSD that I had laying around. The original Win10 SSD is in a box in the cupboard.

However, as I am wont to do, I fixed it till it broke by installing first Ubuntu Mate, deleting it and then installing Debian 11 (Buster). If you have read my thread to here you know my issue.

Solution:

In the absence of a simple fix to my problem I undertook the method outlined in:

https://access.redhat.com/documentation ... oot_loader

26.5.4. Creating a Custom Menu

The end result is very similar to that of Jafadmin. Testing time ahead.

Note:
1. Some of the paths differ because I am using a different OS.
2. Being much more comfortable using Puppy all of the changes were done using it. Rox>Select Directory>Right Click>Window>Terminal Here is much more natural than cd, sudo, and so on.
3. The last command must, of course, be done, in my case, Debian.

Not the solution I was hoping for but in the short term I am going to mark the thread as Solved.

[JASpup]

Ubuntu MATE is the only non-Puppy Linux I boot.
It is no problem with YUMI from Windows.

Still novice a year in I chose visuals and the support base.

If you're struggling to install an os before realizing you don't like it, you might be happier with a USB bootlife.

I do not understand why partition numbers are skipped.
On my machines it tends to be 3, e.g. sda2, sda4, sdb2, sdb4.