Preserve non-grub bootloader?

[tarps192]

Hi all.
On this system, a dual boot, I would like to preserve the boot manager, and it is not grub.
The linuxmint live cd looks like it uses grub2. If I am not mistaken, does not grub2 insist on writing itself as the bootloader overwriting any bootmanager that existed?

In the past I have used (older) distros that uses legacy grub and was able to install grub into the boot partition of linux. The proprietary boot manager was then able to find and boot any linux distros using grub legacy this way. Is there a way to get grub2 to do this?

p.s. Why does grub2 work this way? Hate to say it, but It is almost M$ like.

[mintybits]

Hi all.
On this system, a dual boot, I would like to preserve the boot manager, and it is not grub.
The linuxmint live cd looks like it uses grub2. If I am not mistaken, does not grub2 insist on writing itself as the bootloader overwriting any bootmanager that existed?

In the past I have used (older) distros that uses legacy grub and was able to install grub into the boot partition of linux. The proprietary boot manager was then able to find and boot any linux distros using grub legacy this way. Is there a way to get grub2 to do this?

Yes, Ubuntu and Mint use Grub2 nowadays. The Ubuntu/Mint installer, bizarrely, does not allow you to install with no Grub but it will let you install it to a PBR. You have to choose the "Something Else" option and change the boot-loader location in the pull-down menu.

Having said this, installing Grub in a PBR is not recommended by the grub designers. It is unreliable because the ext filesystem (unlike NTFS) does not provide enough space for a full grub. The concise grub it uses cannot read ext4 and so uses a fixed sector address to find it's core.img file that is in the /boot/grub partition. Over time, certain filesystem operations can cause the sector address of core.img to change and this will break grub and you won't be able to boot Mint.

p.s. Why does grub2 work this way? Hate to say it, but It is almost M$ like.

I think it is worse than M$. The querky way Grub is installed causes endless problems for people who dual-boot with Windows, for example. Ideally, Grub would be entirely contained inside the linux partition.

[tarps192]

I think it is worse than M$. The querky way Grub is installed causes endless problems for people who dual-boot with Windows, for example. Ideally, Grub would be entirely contained inside the linux partition.

Querky indeed! Thanks for your help, mintybits. The grub devs should seriously consider remaking grub to have a legacy type mode.

[DataMan]

I'm in a similar situation (by design). I have a dedicated GRUB legacy partition that is my only boot loader. Whenever I do an installation, I always select the "/" partition as the location for GRUB. by doing this the install GRUB doesn't touch my mbr it just sits out there within "/" doing nothing (but occupying space).

-DataMan