[conspire] upgrade and grub

[Paul Zander]

SOLVED.
The were two pieces to the puzzle. 
1.  Where to select to install grub2.  How to use the selection dialog box
Unlike some other operating systems, Linux allows just about everything else to continue during an update.
So I was able to find that /dev/sdb1 was indeed the root partition and it had the boot flag set and the boot directory.  And in that directory were all of the files needed by grub.
Problem 2 was the bigger puzzle,  I could navigate between the selections by several means, but I couldn't actually make the selection.  The trick is to use up | down | tab to highlight what you want.  The press SPACE BAR.  That puts a mark in that box.
So I selected the partition and then it all worked and it boots 
BUT AFTER ALL OF THAT, firefox is still 45.8.0. 
      From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 To: conspire at linuxmafia.com 
 Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2018 11:31 PM
 Subject: Re: [conspire] upgrade and grub
   
Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> So I decided to try my laptop instead.  This would be the machine that was at CABAL a couple years back.  Because of the factory  installed win 8, the least difficult way to run "multi-boot" was to get an external USB drive for debian and leave the internal drive for win.
> 
> sources.list as previously discussed.  All went reasonably well until I get to an issue about grub.
> First dialog box:The GRUB boot loader was previously installed to a disk that is no longer present or whose unique identifier has changed for some reason.It is important to make sure that the installed GRUB core image stays in sync with the GRUB modules and grub.cfg.    
> 
> There is a dialog box with choices: [ ] /dev/sda (1000204 MB; Toshiba ...                # that is the drive with windows [ ] /dev/sdb (1000204 MB; Storage Device) [ ]  - /dev/sdb1 (209715 MB ; / )                        # the root partion
> All I can do is move the cursor between the three sets of [ ].   I tried to select the second or third choice, but the next dialog box warns me that I am not installing grub anywhere and do I really want to do that?
> I did a little sleuthing in a different window.  grub.cfg is in /boot/grub/gparted tells me that /dev/sdb1 has the boot flag set.
> Maybe my only issue is figuring out the dialog box.  

I hope someone with more relevant experience will speak up and help.
As a necessary disclaimer:

1.  I really don't like GRUB at all.
2.  I carefully avoid multi-OS booting and complex boot setups.
    (IMO, it's a lot smarter to meet any multi-OS needs using
    virtual machine technology, though there are edge cases where
    this isn't attractive.)
3.  I am not good at solving GRUB problems, for lack of experience.

My prejudices, and in particular item #2, tend to keep me out of trouble
and avert the need to solve bizarre GRUB problems.


That having been said:

It would have been really handy, about now, if you knew _where_ you 
installed GRUB when you last did so.  It could have been operating from
the master boot record of some primary boot device.  Or it could have 
been reached from whatever bootloader _was_ in that place, via
chainloading it.

It would also be handy, about now, to know which physical drive is set
in your BIOS (or EFT thingie, or whatever) as the default boot device.
Or maybe you mean that you pick 'external USB drive' from the POST-time
boot menu, so that the hardware branches immediately to whatever's in
the MBR on /dev/sdb, which I take to be your USB-connected 'Storage
Device' described by the GRUB update routine.

I'm going to chance a Silly Wild-Assed Guess (SWAG) that you should pick
the second checkbox, /dev/sdb -- the MBR of that drive device.

If this fails, then you might find yourself doing sudden urgent GRUB
repair.  Personally, I would aim to do that from a live-CD Linux
distribution familiar to you, rather than from, e.g., a GRUB>
maintenance prompt on a partially broken system.


At this point, I'm going to stand back, and hope someone with more
relevant experience steps in.



_______________________________________________
conspire mailing list
conspire at linuxmafia.com
http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire


   
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/attachments/20180622/59cb9e84/attachment.html>