Re: problem installing grub to linux mint partition

[David H. Durgee]

Pascal Hambourg wrote:
> Le 03/06/2018 à 18:32, David H. Durgee a écrit :
> > My apologies for the mangled quotations in my replies.  I had not 
> > subscribed to the mailing list as I did not anticipate the need to 
> > continue following it after solving the problem at hand.  As such, I 
> > was viewing the replies on the web and copy/pasting them into the 
> > SeaMonkey email client to respond.  Unfortunately the web form 
> > contains only an option to reply directly to the author of a post via 
> > email, and even that includes no content of the post.
>
> Hints :
> - When you post on a mailing list you are not subscribed to, you can 
> ask people that the replies are CC'ed to you. Some lists make this 
> impossible by mangling the sender's address in the From: header, but 
> this one doesn't.
> - If the list is mirrored as a newsgroup by news.gmane.org (this list 
> is) and your mail client does NNTP (Thunderbird does), you can read 
> the posts through the newsgroup and reply to them. Gmane mangles the 
> From: and To: headers, so you have to set the To: field manually and 
> remove the Group: field. Be aware that the group name can differ 
> broadly from the original list name ; for instance, this list is 
> mirrored as gmane.comp.boot-loaders.grub.user.
>
> > Regarding the partition I am looking to install linux mint sylvia to, 
> > /dev/sda15 is indeed a logical partition and I am chaining from 
> > another boot loader.  The boot loader in particular is the IBM Boot 
> > Manager, as provided with the IBM OS/2 and the eCS products.  As I 
> > noted earlier, this boot loader can chain load a linux installation 
> > with grub installed in the PBR of a jfs partition.  I have also had 
> > suggestions to change from jfs to ext4 for the linux installation, 
> > but I have no idea if the IBM boot manager can chain load such a 
> > partition.
>
> Is this the only reason why you use JFS (an IBM filesystem) ?
> Is IBM Boot Manager natively capable of booting directly a Linux 
> kernel image and its initramfs ? If no, then I guess it just 
> chainloads the boot code in the partition's PBR and does not care 
> about the filesystem type.
>
> > The other workable alternative would be if someone can tell me how to 
> > chain load an OS/2 or eCS installation on a jfs partition from grub. 
> > Obviously this works from the IBM Boot Manager as well as the Air 
> > Boot loader provided with later eCS systems.  I have tried in vain to 
> > do so myself with grub.  My vague recollection is that some 
> > information must be loaded in memory and pointed to at the point of 
> > chaining, but I don't know the details or how this can be done with 
> > grub.
>
> I am afraid I cannot help you on this. I do not know OS/2 nor eCS at 
> all. Would it be possible to install IBM Boot Manager's boot sector 
> code into a partition's PBR instead of a disk's MBR ?
The IBM Boot Manager is installed as one of the three primary partitions 
on the boot drive and is flagged as the active/startable primary 
partition.  The standard MBR then chains its boot sector which starts 
the boot manager.  So it is already in its own primary partition boot 
sector.  I could install grub to the boot drive MBR, but then a second 
step would be required to access the systems as grub would need to chain 
the boot manager which then chains the other systems.

My history is I come from the OS/2 and eCS background and thus my 
systems were set up working with those systems first.  I added other 
systems as I needed to work with them and have since moved on to where 
my primary work environment is linux mint.

To the best of my understanding the IBM boot manager does indeed chain 
load the boot code in the partition's PBR, as it has no problem booting 
FreeDOS, Windows as well as OS/2, eCS and linux with grub in the PBR of 
a JFS partition.  I have never tried to do so with linux installation 
formatted otherwise, so I don't know if it would work or fail.  I also 
use the DFSee tools which work well with JFS partitions.  I know that 
Jan has added ext support to DFSee as well, but I don't know if it has 
reached the level of support available with JFS partitions.

So my preference at this point would be to continue following my 
previous practice of installing linux in a JFS partition and placing 
grub in that partition to be chained by the IBM boot manager.  It 
appears that the linux mint installer, ubiquity, does not allow that as 
an option.  It also appears that it does allow me to tell it not to 
install a boot loader at all when invoked from a terminal session, which 
should allow me to install it after it has installed the latest linux 
mint to the partition.

Once I have done so I will have to see if I can immediately chroot to 
that freshly installed partition and install grub there, possibly 
needing to install the package if it was not installed already.  If I 
cannot do so immediately, I guess I will need to reboot the Live DVD and 
then chroot to the new installation.

Thank you for your input thus far in this issue.  If I encounter further 
difficulties I will be back with additional questions.

Dave