Edit grub (=menu.lst)

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Husse

Edit grub (=menu.lst)

Post by Husse »

I'm experimenting and testing different distros to at least know a little about what I constantly write in the forum :)
Right now I have in this box:
Mint KDE and Cassandra
Feisty
Debian
and I think OpenSuse will be installed soon too.
There is no problem to let grub be on hd0 it handles the install OK.
But the list for boot options gets long (more than one kernel for some, recovery mode memtest)
I'd like to put the normal boot choices in the beginning, and let the rest follow. But which menu.lst do I edit?
All? The last one installed? Or abstain because it would ruin grub. This looks as something where my comoderator could "give me a lesson" :):)
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Boo
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Post by Boo »

you edit the menu.lst of the last Linux you installed.

I have 4 OS's on my laptop currently and that constantly changes.
you only need one memtest entry, and order does not matter.

I don't always install the latest OS's menu.lst to the mbr.
this means you have to remember which OS does have its menu.lst in the mbr and edit it accordingly.

nothing like a little dusting in the menu.lst file.
unless it is called grub.conf for that distro.

:D
Image
Now where was i going? Oh yes, crazy!
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scorp123
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Re: Edit grub (=menu.lst)

Post by scorp123 »

Husse wrote:and I think OpenSuse will be installed soon too.
Make sure you install the smart package manager too. Don't use yast as package manager ... it does a poor job at that, sorry to say so. yast is great for adding and/or removing components from the installer DVD, and it's absolutely superb as sysadmin tool ... but as package manager? Nope, sorry.

Once you got your OpenSUSE 10.2 installed, copy and paste this list to a text file, e.g. "smart-channels.txt":
Once you have this stuff in a text file, "su -" into root and execute this command sequence:

Code: Select all

su -
smart channel --remove-all
smart channel --add smart-channels.txt
smart update
Once you got this stuff entered, smart behaves very much like "apt-get" ... e.g. instead of "apt-get install IwantThisPackage" you'd type (as root!):

Code: Select all

smart install IwantThisPackage
If you want, "smart" also offers a Synaptic-like GUI. As root you'd type:

Code: Select all

smart --gui
Beware that "out of the box" lots of stuff is missing: MP3 codecs, DVD codecs, a decent media player (SUSE ships crippled versions! Make sure you get rid of those and install the real stuff via "smart"!), all the good browser-plugins that make life a bit more interesting ...

With the help of "smart" you can install all those things within 15 minutes. Use smart's GUI and search for packages such as "kdemultimedia3-mad", "mad", "w32codec-all", "MPlayer" (make sure you get a release that has ".pm." in its package name!), "kmplayer" (go for the "guru" releases, e.g. "0.9.3-a1.guru.something ..."), Amarok (again: "guru" releases! e.g. "1.4.5.-101.guru" ...), "xvid", "divx", "libdvdnav", "libdvdread", "libdvdplay" ... You basically just need to select these few packages; tons of other relevant dependencies (more codecs, more libs) will be auto-selected for you. All this sounds more complicated than it really is, trust me. With "smart" you get multimedia and codecs in no time. Also, SUSE has plenty of additional DVD stuff on its channels, e.g. various rippers and conversion tools. Just search for "dvd" or "video" and you get tons of more stuff you may want to install.

Make sure you downgrade (!!) k3b to packman's (*.pm* in package names!) release, e.g. 0.99.1.pm.2 ... The SUSE 1.0xxx versions are crippled and don't support MP3 encoding or decoding :? The 0.99.pm release will do just fine.

Also, please make sure you read this article: "Hacking OpenSUSE 10.2": http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/60/

All in all OpenSUSE 10.2 isn't bad, it's management tools are superb ... it's just that if you're used to Mint you may find it's multimedia capabilities quite lacking "out of the box". Hence this small tutorial :wink:
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Husse

Post by Husse »

Thanks guys - the team to the rescue :)
What you describe scorp goes to show that Mint in many ways is superb. On the other hand OpenSuse is the free version of RedHat which is focusing on business - not so much need for multimedia there I suppose.
It also explains why Yast is looked upon so differently - some hate it others love it.
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hairy_Palms
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Post by hairy_Palms »

n the other hand OpenSuse is the free version of RedHat which is focusing on business - not so much need for multimedia there I suppose.
actually opensuse is the free version of SLED, fedora is the free version of red hat :) and as of opensuse 10.3 smart is being removed in favor of yast.
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Husse

Post by Husse »

Oops :oops:
I was convinced the other way round - thanks for the input.
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scorp123
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Post by scorp123 »

Husse wrote:On the other hand OpenSuse is the free version of RedHat.
Wrong. OpenSUSE is Novell's free distro. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (= "RHEL") is from Red Hat Inc. Fedora (previously known as "Fedora Core") is Red Hat's free distro. Red Hat and Novell are competitors in the Enterprise market ... :wink:
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scorp123
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Post by scorp123 »

hairy_Palms wrote: and as of opensuse 10.3 smart is being removed in favor of yast.
Wrong. They are removing zenworks and that other management crap they introduced with OpenSUSE 10.1 ... smart was never ever an "official" core part of OpenSUSE, so they don't have to "remove" it. smart is a replacement for the abandoned "apt" (= apt4rpm) project that too was never ever a core part of (Open-) SUSE but was very popular amongst us users. Smart is better in many aspects than "apt4rpm" (but still quite a bit inferior especially speed-wise to the "apt" you'd find in Debian-like distros).

EDIT: Here the link to the official announcement on Novell's web site:
http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=326

Zenworks will be gone ... yippieh :D ... and not "smart" :wink:

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Last edited by scorp123 on Sun May 13, 2007 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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kenetics
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Post by kenetics »

Thanks for the repository info, I can use it on my openSUSE, one of my 3 "keeper" os's.

Zenworks, not to be confused with Zenwalk. Too much meditation for me!
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scorp123
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Post by scorp123 »

kenetics wrote:Thanks for the repository info, I can use it on my openSUSE, one of my 3 "keeper" os's.
You're welcome. It's such a shame that they bloated yast with that zen-nonse so much. Instead they should have gone with smart, which is lean and mean in comparison. Smart being not "official" comes completely unconfigured, hence the need to add those channel lists manually. :wink:
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