I'm calling this an enhancement request, but really I think it is a bug. Description of problem: /boot partition can be shared among multiple distros, with all using the same version of grub to choose what to boot. All other I'm familiar with (Caldera, Mandrake, SuSE) find the boot menu in /boot/grub/menu.lst. When multiple distros are in one grub menu, all the distros should be able to use the same menu, but for that to work, menu.lst must be linked to grub.conf, or Fedora presents a grub prompt instead of the boot menu. Linking is fine, but only until one starts editing the config menu, and properly backing up each version. If you botch it and want to copy back, you likely either break the link, or wind up continuing to use the broken previous version still linked. You can easily wind up being unable to boot anything until figuring out how to use the grub prompt to get booted, or rescue boot and frammitz up the works by reinstalling grub anew. Grub is Grub, a mini OS, not Linux. It can stand alone, apart from Linux, so its configuration absence from /etc, and the absence of any .conf file, is justified. http://www.gnu.org/manual/grub/html_mono/grub.html contains the grub docs, but no reference to grub.conf. Making users wholly dependent on Fedora docs for GNU software is and will be confusing, especially in this case where the distinction between Fedora and the standard may be unknown to the user. If we want grub.conf in Fedora, fine, but make the otherwise standard menu.lst at least a functional option.
This has been on my list of things to do at some point for quite some time now, just waiting on the time to implement it.
*** Bug 55555 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
[This is a mass update sent to many bugs that missed earlier such messages due to having their version set to a test version.] This bug was originally filed against a version of Fedora Core which is no longer supported, even for security updates. Many changes have occured since then. Please retest this bug against a still supported version. Note that FC3 and FC4 are supported by Fedora Legacy for security fixes only. If it still occurs on FC5 or FC6, please assign to the correct version. Otherwise, if this a security issue, please change the product to Fedora Legacy. Thanks, and we are sorry that we did not get to this bug earlier. This bug will be closed after a few weeks if no information is given indicating that the bug is still present in a supported release.
Assignee, if you haven't yet fixed this, please update to current version. I haven't tested, because you haven't indicated there might be any point in trying. Please reassign if you have no expectation of actually doing anything with this ancient problem.
Tested in FC6. Still doesn't work.
Fedora Core 6 is not maintained anymore. Can you reproduce this bug in Fedora 8?
Still a bug in Fedora 8.
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Still a bug in Fedora 10
For the love of FSM, why hasn't this been fixed?
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I've been trying a follow-up confirmation on this, but Anaconda seems intent on preventing it. Latest attempt can be found at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=520058#c9 and the attachment preceding it. Bug 249399 was preventing attempts for a long time, but I presume as of 2.6.28 installation kernels that has to be an obsolete obstacle. The only "current" Fedora I have ATM is 12 on an LVM partition which I am booting without use of Fedora's implementation of Grub.
I just booted F13, renamed grub.conf to menu.lst, and rebooted to find a grub> prompt instead of a Grub boot menu.
This really isn't ever going to get fixed unless somebody who wants it provides a patch.
I don't see how this can be considered NOTABUG when considering the bug dup'd to this as a part of it.
"This is not going to be fixed. Therefore it is not a bug." I believe this is called "Cart before the horse" logic. It's also an asshole way to close a bug too. I thought these shenanigans ended when Ulrich Drepper lost his job...
For the record, I understand it's not going to be fixed since we have GRUB2 in the pipeline. Still, that fact doesn't remove one bit from the "Cart before the horse" logic.