dual booting mint & arch, with mint first..

[binskipy2u]

..instead of 2nd..

Currently i have a dual boot linux box... mint is installed 2nd. The directions I used to dual boot 2 linux distros was to install the first one and DONT install grub, but wait till installing mint on a different/another parition, then install grub so it finds the linux on the first partition..
I notice during install of mint, there is NO (not that i've seen) option to NOT install grub, it just has a drop list where to put grub. is there anyway, not toi nstall grub as part of the install process?

I want to put mint 1st instead of 2nd.. I hope this question & this post make sense

thanks for any info in advance

The reason I want mint first is due to my excessive distro hoping, i like bleeding edge... and/but I love mint just for stability, and ubuntu base for compatability

[viking777]

I want to put mint 1st instead of 2nd.. I hope this question & this post make sense

Not quite - at least not to me. Do you mean that you just want Mint to appear first in the grub menu? If that is the case you should be able to install grub-customizer and achieve that very simply. https://launchpad.net/grub-customizer (How to install - Ubuntu). If you mean that you want Mint to boot by default instead of Arch then that is even easier. Open /etc/default/grub in a root file manager and change

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GRUB_DEFAULT="0"

to

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GRUB_DEFAULT="1"

then run

sudo update-grub

This assumes that Arch is listed first and that is what you want to change.

But I have a feeling that neither of these is what you are looking for so if they aren't, have another go at explaining what it is you want to achieve.

[binskipy2u]

I don't see where on Mint , that you can NOT install the grub bootloader. I see a drop list where it asks where I want to install the bootloader, but it looks like it must be installed. So I installed Arch first on sda1,sda2 and put Mint on sda3,sda4 and Mint's grub found Arch and put it in the menu.

I wanted to install Mint on first (since it's staying, its the 2nd distro that I may be hoping around a bit) so whatever distro THAT is is the one I want THAT grub to find Mint and put it in.. make any sense now?
I wanted it like : Mint /sda1, /home sda2 , Arch /sda3, /root sda4 and when I finish installing arch, arch's grub can find mint.. instead of the way i have it, arch/mint.. and mints grub doing the bootloading..

I hope this makes sense

[viking777]

Well I see what you are trying to do now (though I have no idea why?? ). Anyway that is your business. What you want to do is to move Mint to sda 1,2 and have Arch on sda 3,4 - got it.
To do that you will have to reinstall them both.

Reinstall mint on sda1 and 2 with grub on /dev/sda. Then reinstall Arch on sda3 and 4 with grub on /dev/sda3 (or sda4 depending on which is your / partition). When you have done that boot into MInt and run

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sudo update-grub

Which will pick up the Arch install.

Totally baffled as to why you would want to go to all this trouble though, it makes absolutely no difference to Mint where it is on the hard disk, it doesn't have to first. Still, it is your time to waste.

[BobMacall]

is there anyway, not toi nstall grub as part of the install process?

I had the same question, after I installed opensuse 12.2 after Mint 14.
I had dual boot Mint 14 and Win 7, then added opensuse. During the install
there's a point where you check the place to install the bootloader. I unchecked
all locations thinking that would mean "don't install a bootloader". As the install
went forward I see a message on the screen "Installing bootloader blah blah blah"
I knew I was screwed! You apparently want your main distro Mint, to control the
boot process as your other distros are just experimental. Me too. I think in that case, even if
you are forced to install a bootloader it should be installed in the root partition of the
extra distro. That way Mint will still be in the MBR and control booting. If you eliminate
the extra distro with a new one, your still good to go. That's what I'll do next time unless
the option to not install a bootloader is explicit in the install program.
Bob

[zerozero]

unless someone comes along and explains me in very simple words, not installing a bootloader at all means that such distro is not bootable (only if you install it afterwards manually but that is exactly the same as picking the PBR to install grub > something that most installers today have as an option) and then go the distro that controls MBR and perform an update-grub
^^ this has always worked for me with sometimes +10 distros installed in the same hdd.

[BobMacall]

Why do you need a second bootloader? Isn't one enough? Just tell the first bootloader
where to find the kernel and intrd? I'm not sure what opensuse did, where it installed a bootloader
but it boots just fine after boot-repair. I did later manually setup /etc/grub.d/40_custom and do a grub config in
Mint and that would have to be done each time a new distro is added. The other way to do this would have
been to let each subsequent distro installed put it's bootloader in the MBR. Then booting all distros
would be automagic. Os-prober would pick them all up and add them to /boot/grub/grub.cfg of the last
installed distro. It wouldn't be necessary to do grub config or modify files.
But maybe I'm missing something about how grub works??
Bob

[Matti L]

Running ubiquity -b will install Mint without a bootloader.

[zerozero]

The other way to do this would have
been to let each subsequent distro installed put it's bootloader in the MBR. Then booting all distros
would be automagic. Os-prober would pick them all up and add them to /boot/grub/grub.cfg of the last
installed distro. It wouldn't be necessary to do grub config or modify files.

no, you don't need to do this.

hypothetical scenario
- you have sda partitioned in 4 (sda1|2|3|4) (sda1 is swap so let's leave it alone here)
- you install THE distro in sda2 and point the installer to put grub in the MBR (all's fine, you have your distro, a functional grub)
- you decide to look&see another distro; install it in sda3 and put its grub in sda3 as well (the PBR)
- reboot straight to the distro in sda2 (your main distro) (at this point you don't even have other option), perform sudo update-grub and the distro that you just installed in sda3 is added to your grub.

advantages:
- there's no manual config involved, grub does all the job
- if you have grub and/or kernel updates in the testing distro your configuration doesn't change (something that happens if you install all the bootloaders in mbr)
- if you decide to change distros in sda3|4 your main distro and its grub is not affected in any way

[Flemur]

I have Mint and Arch installed dual-boot.

1 - Installed Mint w/normal grub garbage(*).
2 - Installed Arch w/o any grub at all; I edit the 'menu.lst'(*) file on Mint, and add the Arch stuff by hand:

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title       ARCH 3.6.9
root        (hd0,3)
kernel     /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda4 rootfstype=ext4 raid=noautodetect ro
initrd      /boot/initramfs-linux.img

(of course the (hd0,3) and /dev/sda4 will prolly be different)

* grub is pretty damned poor, but the "legacy' version isn't as bad as the current one. I never run "update-grub' or whatever is supposed to detect OS and make a new boot file from a bunch of other files - it's much easier to edit the "DO NOT EDIT" (menu.lst or grub.cfg(?)) file by hand - make a copy before you edit.

[BobMacall]

install it in sda3 and put its grub in sda3 as well (the PBR)

Yes, but is grub install here sda3 (PBR) really necessary? I checked opensuse for core.img file
but didn't find it any where. After you do sudo update-grub, how is sda3 being booted,
direct or chainloader? Grub can chainload another grub, but why?

- if you decide to change distros in sda3|4 your main distro and its grub is not affected in any way

I believe that is the advantage the original poster was after all along. And what I thought I wanted as well.

2 - Installed Arch w/o any grub at all; I edit the 'menu.lst'(*) file on Mint, and add the Arch stuff by hand:

It's nice to know that at least one distro will let you install without bootloader.(thought I might be crazy!) But how can you
be using grub legacy from Mint. Did you install grub legacy after setup? I thought most distros are using grub2.

This is the section of /etc/grub.d/40_custom that boots opensuse. It's alot like your menu.lst entry for Arch

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menuentry 'openSUSE 12.2' --class gnu-linux --class os {
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod ext2
        set root='hd0,msdos7'
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 289f50c0-53fd-4895-a321-18a816e85945
        linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.4.11-2.16-default ro  quiet splash $vt_handoff
        initrd /boot/initrd-3.4.11-2.16-default
        }


Seems to work ok,except when Yast automatically upgraded the kernel!!
Bob

[zerozero]

but is grub install here sda3 (PBR) really necessary? [...] Grub can chainload another grub, but why?

i'm using this method for it's ease of use (or laziness depends ); i don't have to edit files, grub works reliable now, i have no issues chainloading all the several distros in the hdd (works for me)

some years ago (when we had distros with grub2 and others with grub1) this method was not reliable and back then i was editing 40_custom as well.

Flemur's way is another option ofc.

just one note though: i have no idea how this works (if at all) with (u)efi and secure boot (it's a monster that i don't want to meet)