GRUB/mount help

[Calum]

hello, no big deal, i'm going to ask the internet anyway but do you happen to know how i'd add my new FreeBSD system to GRUB from red hat?

thanks in advance. oh yes, how do i bloody mount the red hat partition (ext3) from freeBSD and how do i mount the FreeBSD partition (ufs) in redhat. neither seem to want to work.  

[Pantso]

From what I know GRUB supports the folowing filesystems: ext2, ext3, reiser FS, jfs, xfs, minix and the DOS FAT FS, but not the Unix File System (UFS). Does anyone have more info?

I'll get back to you later for your second question. I'll have to check some things out first.

[KernelPanic]

this link should help with the GRUB bit.

[beltorak0]

do you have the UFS compiled into your RH kernel?  how about ext2/3 in your BSD kernel?  I don't think that either is the default; but you can try to "modprobe -v ufs" and see if that helps in redhat -- it might be compiled as a module... or if you have the configure file laying about (perhaps in /boot) you can search for the ufs file system config option to know for sure....

[Calum]

if they're not the default, then i don't have them.
i have never recompiled my kernel successfully except once when i was handheld by somebody who knew what they were doing.

i will take your advice though, thank you both very much!

looks like this site has still got some great posters who post good info. i think this forum might come back from the dead yet!

[Master of Reality]

did you install the FreeBSD bootloader at the beginning of the freebsd partition?
If you did then you can load it the same way you would load windows (And i believe you already know how to do that).

[Calum]

well i installed the freebsd bootloader on the mbr, interestingly i ruined the contents of the laptop's hard drive (fun when you know you have nothing to lose!) and the only system still running is now freeDOS on the first partition. so i booted from a MSDOS6.22 bootdisk i had kicking about and did fdisk /mbr and so you know what? instead of booting into FreeDOS next time i boot, guess what? FreeBSD bootloader! (weird) well maybe it's not on the mbr then. that's the sort of thing i am trying to familiarise myself with in this little experiment.

[beltorak0]

compiling a stock kernel is nothing really.  You start to have problems when trying to compile a tweeked one (like the ones from mandrake).  I looked at the source code to try to find out why this one section wouldn't compile -- i never saw so many GOTO statements in my life!  Not even back in my days of GW-BASIC (dos 2.11 style); i don't even think i have that many JMP's in assembly!  And a JMP is the only means of flow control!  anyway... it took a long time to get the 2.4.19-16mdk kernel to compile correctly (and i had to turn off some things i had left on before....).  Download stock kernel sources, and copy your current config file for redhat to /usr.src.linux-<version>/.config .  You should have no problems with the high-magick linux spell "make (menu|x)config; make dep; make modules; make modules_install; make; make bzImage" and optionally "make install" -- but of course I prefer to copy everything by hand to /boot...  just remember to rename the "EXTRAVERSION" variable at the top of the Makefile or you might end up obliterating your working-kernel modules...  I just compiled 2.4.20 today... using it now.  I even replaced the boot logo with a slackware pic  

[ February 04, 2003: Message edited by: beltorak ]

[5amYan]

I used to boot FBSD OBSD and RH7.1 with W2K.
I believe OBSD needs to be on the first partition.
FreeBSD can be on any partition.  Choose No boot manager/loader/thingy.  That's what grub is.

It' been a while but I remember the trick to be adding a letter to grub's hd statement.

Assuming dead rat is on Part1 and FBSD is on part2
/etc/grub.conf

Splash=DeadRat.png
Use this kern to boot to linux=vmlinuz
rdiomage.......


Title=FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE
rootnoverify (hd0,1a)
chainloader +1

See FFS (UFS1) divides the partition into slices so it's on the first disk-->0 the second partition --> 1 and the first slice --> a

or someletter I don't remember which slice it is.
keep changing it and you'll find it.  

I stopped running W2K, and Dead Rat when I found SoL! Then gave that up for FreeBSD.  Once I learned how organized it is, I never looked back.

Check out the  Netcraft survey, look at the longest uptimes.  Most of them are FreeBSD    :cool:  
I wrote thiswhen I built mine last.  It will help you get the most up to date system...
Have fun

[ February 05, 2003: Message edited by: 5amYan ]

[Calum]

beltorak, i don't rwally understand what you are saying however your post is most valuable in telling me exzactly the sorts of things i should be learning about. the next thing for me is to go and print out void main's kernel upgrading instructions and try to do them.

as for FreeBSD, it doesn't seem to recognise extended partitions, but i am having that problem quite a bit, and i think it's a combination of the BIOS/bootloaders/OSs i am using. i'm just trying to stuff as many OSs on the one machine (with the dodgy video card and sound card, and funny CD drive and virtually useless modem/network card) to try them all out. so far my favourite linux to learn from is basiclinux (i already learned it only has block devices for hard drive partitions up to hda8, but i have no idea how to make one for hda9 if i need to) and i am totally stumped at how to get my mouse and CD drive working in FreeDOS let alone how to get a GUI going.

but i'm seriously into off topic rambling so it would be good for me to stop here.

[beltorak0]

well Calum #81, you inspired me to write a kernel-compile howto.  For some reason I can't see void main's (can you email it to me void?), so i wrote my own for you.  It is very terse, but I think you should have no problems with it.  Especially if you meet my assumptions.  I might update it to HTML later, but right now it's a straight txt file.  Let me know if it does you some good.

Projects Index

feedback (readability (sucks, i know), accuracy, that sort of thing) appreciated.

[Calum]

i will indeed try your tutorial and let you know how it goes.

do you happen to know what libraries and utilities have to be installed in order to recompile a kernel? I am planning to use the kernel sources from red hat (they are unmodified, yes?) but i want to do the recompile using basiclinux (a tiny linux based on busybox with some slack 7.1 stuff.

i just wondered if there's a list somewhere of requirements or dependencies i must have tyo recompile the kernel. for example, there's no C compiler in basiclinux, so i will install one, and so on.

[beltorak0]

well, i did the kernel compile using knoppix (but I cheated -- sorta).  I am fairly certain that a busybox base would be woefully insufficient for the task of a compile.  I would suggest using your current red-hat installation.  Why, out of curiousity, aren't you planning to use RH as your compile environmet?  basic linux might be ok tho... i don't know what is on it.  Here would be your main problem:
 

quote:
There is only 750kb free on the BasicLinux ramdisk.

Also, since it runs off a 4mb ramdisk, you would not be able to get the libc library on to it (it's a little over 5 megs itself, and gcc needs it).  If you have the hardrive space, you can compile it there (there's nothing stating that the compile dir has to be /usr/src, that's just convention).  If your only problem is that RH will not boot, you can try this:

Code: [Select]

That's what I did for knoppix to compile my kernel 'cause I forgot to ensure that my kernel had reiserfs compiled in. doh! The pivot_root command does what you suspect -- it swaps what is mounted as the root fs.  "man pivot_root" for more info.  It must be allowed by the kernel (I don't know what allows it), and you must have access to the program.

Red hat sources are most likely not un-modified -- however, as long as you can locate your current config file, you should have no problems changing only the things that you need to: UFS support for instance.  If, on the otherhand, you have to start the config from scratch, you could be in a world of hurt if the RH team didn't check all thier dependancies (like the Mandrake team didn't).  For instance, when trying to compile the ALSA drivers into the M/9 kernel, it tried to compile for the arm archetecture... the compiler had a few fits about that one, and I had a few choice words to say... but i digress.

Oh, I just installed ethereal (very cool indeed), and I found out why I can't see anything on void main's site.  The transaction goes something like this:
me > void: SYN
void > me: SYN ACK
me > void: ACK
me > void: http: GET
void > me: RST
void > me: RST

Why is he sending back RSTs after I request the http???  Am I missing something?

[Calum]

hello, i have installed basiclinux on my hard drive, and it has a lot of extra utils and so on that you don't get in the ramdisk version. also i plan to install egcs and xwindows on it. i have a 128Mb partition to put it all in.

the reason i want to do this in basiclinux rather than redhat is to learn more about how it all works. if i need certain tools, i want to install them myself to get a personal feel for it rather than just compile the kernel parrot fashion on a system with everything preinstalled.