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Getting Ready For Karmic Koala – Upgrading To GRUB 2

By Ricky on October 28th, 2009

This is a continuation of the series of article "Getting Ready For Karmic Koala". The previous articles in this series are: 1, 2, 3, 4.

You might have heard it or maybe you have not, but Karmic Koala is to have GRUB 2 by default if you did a clean install. However, if you upgrade from Jaunty, you will retain GRUB, which was used in Jaunty. So this article is to help those upgrading from Jaunty get GRUB 2 in their system.

Before we start, here are some of the improvements of GRUB 2 over GRUB:

It can boot LiveCD iso image directly from the hard disk
It has scripting support
It 2 has improved splash capabilities
It is themeable and has custom menus

Now, to get to the task of upgrading to GRUB 2 follow the steps below:

Warning: This is for Karmic. In Jaunty, you will encounter errors if you follow the following steps.

1. Open the terminal and update the repository index using the command

sudo apt-get update

2. Then run the command

sudo apt-get install grub-pc

3. A "configuring grub-pc" will come up. Select "Ok". grub2_1

4. After selecting "Ok" in step 3, you will see a question, "Chainload from menu.lst?". Select "Yes". This allows the user to test GRUB 2.

5. Now there will be be an option to import sections from GRUB's menu.lst to the "Linux Command Line". Just select "Ok". grub2_2

6. Reboot your system now using the command:

sudo reboot

7. In GRUB you will see an entry "Chainload into GRUB 2". Select it to see if GRUB 2 is working properly. grub2_3

8. If GRUB 2 is working properly, upgrade by using the command

sudo upgrade-from-grub-legacy

GRUB 2 will then show you where it's booting from.

Warning:You have to use the spacebar to mark the choice here. DO NOT go on without doing this. It WILL result in your system showing error 15 and being unable to even show a boot menu. If you are running a dual boot system with WindowsXP or Vista, you might have to do additional fixes after upgrading to get it to work. (Thanks Sikku)

Done. You now have GRUB 2 installed.

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Related Posts by Tags: grub, grub2, karmic, koala, upgrade

Squirreldancer

Warning: This is for Karmic. In Jaunty, you will encounter errors if you follow the following steps.

Um, so this isn’t about getting ready for Karmic, this is what to do after you’ve upgraded.

How do I get grub2 in Jaunty?
- Ricky
  
  check out this article to install it in Jauntu http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-install-grub-2-on-ubuntu-9.04
http://linuxblog.posterous.com/ Sikku

I updated my Ubuntu Karmic development version to grub 2 according to the instructions… But my grub has completely crashed… I am not able to get the boot screen… What should I do???
- Ricky
  
  ideally that should not happen. did it work properly in step 7?
  - http://linuxblog.posterous.com/ Sikku
    
    No… Instead of the screen given in this article (for step 7) I got the all new Grub 1.97 beta. After this I did the step 8 also. Thinking that I got the same screen which you have put here. After doing so I rebooted my system. All I got is this error:
    “Error 15: File not found”
    
    Anyway, I had Fedora installed in the system so I used the Fedora 11 DVD and rescued the Grub by selecting the rescue option from the boot menu. But again was not able to boot to Ubuntu. Then I modified the menu.lst to point to Ubuntu image…
    
    After booting from Ubuntu I again did the same steps. Now I am able to get the same Grub 1.97 beta without any problems.
    
    Now I am trying to boot a Live CD image from Hard Disk using Grub 2. If anyone has already done it please help… Thanks…
    - Ricky
      
      Hi Sikku, glad to know that you have fixed the problem.
      As for the booting from hard disk, i havn’t actually done it but i read somewhere that it can be done by using grub2′s loopback functionality.
      - http://linuxblog.posterous.com/ Sikku
        
        Hey Ricky, I found out what the problem was.
        At step 8, we need to hit the space bar to select the option. Because of this the system was showing Error 15.
        
        “You have to use the spacebar to mark the choice here. DO NOT go on without doing this. It WILL result in your system showing error 15 and being unable to even show a boot menu. If you are running a dual boot system with WindowsXP or Vista, you might have to do additional fixes after upgrading to get it to work.”
        
        https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2
        
        Ricky
        
        Thnaks for pointing that out.
pyrotechnix

Hi, I have a dual-boot (Fedora12/WinXP) and I wanted to try out Ubuntu KK. Ubuntu recognized Fedora12 during install but I went ahead and installed its boot-loader in the boot partition instead of MBR. After install, I intended to change Fedora’s grub menu.lst to have an entry for Ubuntu like this:
title Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)
root (hd0,9)
chainloader +1
I didn’t find any menu.lst in ubuntu partition (then I found about the shift to GRUB 2). I am wondering if this is the correct way to go about chain loading Ubuntu grub from Fedora.

Thanks!