[NTLUG:Discuss] RE: Lost boot Loader -- for GRUB/LILO, _stick_ with distro's own rescue

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sun, 2004-10-31 at 22:47, Paul Ingendorf wrote:
> Come on Terry, who isn't put in a tight spot when asked to locate a blank
> floppy.  Also, why would someone use a slackware disk to fix a fedora
> install when that requires them to find something else to download when
> everything they need is sitting right on their install cd?

I agree.  When it comes to GRUB, different distros use different paths
to the configuration files.

Now while GRUB reads the /boot/grub/grub.conf (Fedora) dynamically, it
_does_ use the /boot/grub/device.map (Fedora) _statically_ when you run
"grub-install".

Many distros name the "BIOS to Linux Device" file for GRUB
_differently_.  And if hd0 doesn't line up to match hda (possibly sda?),
then booting another distro's recovery _may_not_ install the correct
mapping.

<opinion>
I really tire of different people using these situations to push
Knoppix, Slackware, etc... (let alone "ports" distros like Gentoo for
many other issues with more "packages" distros like Fedora or Debian). 
Not because they merely do it, but they are not "considerate" of the
issues that may be involved when they do.

Over the years I've seen such suggestions lead to _disasterous_ results
for a user who already had a working distro that worked for them.

Poor assumptions lead to poor results.  Let's make it about helping
people.  Let's not make it about pushing our favorite distro at every
opportunity where someone has already installed and is using another
distro.

If that doesn't explain it, see the first Q&A here:  
  http://www.vaporwarelabs.com/linux.html  
</opinion>


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                  b.j.smith at ieee.org 
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