Description of problem: Installer does not detect other linux distributions: Ubuntu 10.04 on /dev/sda2 Ubuntu 9.10 on /dev/sda3 while installing Fedora into /dev/sda1 Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 2.6.33.1-19.fc13.i686 How reproducible: always? Steps to Reproduce: 1. install fedora on hard drive with other linux distributions 2. 3. Actual results: installer does not automatically add Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 entries into boot selection screen Expected results: find and add automatically preinstalled Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 into grub menu Additional info: _ _ _ _ _ mount /dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw) proc on /proc type proc (rw) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620) tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,rootcontext="system_u:object_r:tmpfs_t:s0") none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw) sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw) gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/kristjan/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=kristjan) /dev/sda2 on /media/9a32ab15-a69e-4d1d-89c2-3a3d95feec23 type jfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks) /dev/sda3 on /media/38cd0de9-e24b-4963-b41e-c39b0b07f4f0 type ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks) _ _ _ _ _ df -H Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 7.1G 3.2G 3.9G 46% / tmpfs 1.1G 668k 1.1G 1% /dev/shm /dev/sda2 7.2G 3.1G 4.2G 43% /media/9a32ab15-a69e-4d1d-89c2-3a3d95feec23 /dev/sda3 8.1G 4.4G 3.3G 58% /media/38cd0de9-e24b-4963-b41e-c39b0b07f4f0
Could you add a copy of your /boot/grub/grub.conf file for reference?
Created attachment 405074 [details] grub.conf
Created attachment 405075 [details] fstab Could it be that I choose to not mount the other partitions during installation? This is what I usually do in Ubuntu, I do not mount other operating system partitions. So it's less work then I reinstall or reformat on of them.
There are a couple parts to this. One is that anaconda doesn't 'merge' with a previous grub.conf (assuming you use the same /boot partition as you used for Ubuntu). It also doesn't do any kind of scan of available partitions to detect other distributions. This wouldn't work well anyway, it would be very difficult to determine kernel boot parameters, etc. The right way to fix this is to allow reuse of an existing /boot partition and merge the fedora grub entry with pre-existing entries from other distributions on the system.
(In reply to comment #4) > There are a couple parts to this. One is that anaconda doesn't 'merge' with a > previous grub.conf (assuming you use the same /boot partition as you used for > Ubuntu). I am not using separate /boot partitions, my setup is simple: /fedora /ubuntu 10.04 /ubuntu 9.10 /home (except for fedora) /swap > It also doesn't do any kind of scan of available partitions to detect > other distributions. This wouldn't work well anyway, it would be very difficult > to determine kernel boot parameters, etc. It works excellent for Ubuntu however. I just reinstalled grub on MBR using Ubuntu 9.10 live CD. Now I booted successfully into Ubuntu 10.04 and run "sudo update-grub". It found Fedora 13 and added the entry into boot menu.
Interesting. I'll have to take a look at Ubuntu and see what they are doing to find the location of /boot/grub/grub.conf
I just installed Fedora 13 (from the Live CD) next to the Ubuntu on my Atom netbook. (I asked it to shrink the existing Ubuntu ext4 partition, which it did.) Fedora clobbered the boot block, without even asking me. When I got back into Ubuntu via a recovery disk, Ubuntu's update-grub was unable to add a working entry for Fedora. If the Fedora partitions aren't mounted, update-grub doesn't even try looking for them. If they ARE mounted, you indeed get a Fedora 13 entry added to the grub prompt, but booting from it doesn't succeed, apparently because it tries to boot from the root partition, not the boot partition. It probably worked for k.t. because he has a custom partition setup. I used the default in Ubuntu (just / and swap, which sit next to the unused shrunken Windows partitions on this netbook) and the default in Fedora (/boot plus an LVM partition that everything else gets dumped into). Ubuntu didn't even load LVM by default, so it couldn't even SEE most of the Fedora partitions until I installed lvm on it. In short -- y'all guys ought to do some integration to make coexistence seamless. And long before that, Fedora should be changed so it NEVER clobbers the boot block without asking. (The installation manual said it would ask, but I was watching for that question and it never came up.)
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 14 development cycle. Changing version to '14'. More information and reason for this action is here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping
*** Bug 645953 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
os-prober (bug #678442) is used by Debian, and is probably what is used in Ubuntu too. It is also being used by grub2 to detect other OSes in the system. It can be adopted to grub 1 too, and a simple example (a modified grub2 script) is available at [1], which generates entries for other installed OSes. [1] http://hedayat.fedorapeople.org/scripts/grub1-other-os-prober.sh
Thanks.
*** Bug 640943 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
os-prober is now in Fedora.
in f16 rc5, rescue mode, grub2-install does not add to grub menu any other installed os, be it, fedora 14, windows xp or other linux versions (mandriva, suse). should i open a new bug for this?
This is due to bug #678456. Since grub2 RPM doesn't depend on os-prober, I think you are missing os-prober.
Now in Fedora 16, grub2-mkconfig can successfully detect other OSes. However, when I installed Fedora 16 TC1, it didn't detect my own Fedora 15 installation in another partition. I wonder if it has anything to do with my Fedora 15 being installed on an LVM partition (as I think anaconda doesn't activate LVM partitions in that step). (on the other hand my /boot partition is separate...)
Well, this bug is fixed. However, bug #825236 is still there.