Legacy Mode Installation Using GPT Partitions

[m654321]

I am not a fan of installing Grub to a partition.

AustinTexas, does that mean you haven't created the 16MB Bios_grub partition on the GTP disk, as described in goldfinger's tutorial?
I am still having problems with the multiple-distro install: distro 1 installs ok, then can't get beyond distro 2. 

Goldfinger: if you pass by and happen to read this post, I'd really appreciate if you could comment on how to add the subsequent distros, following installation
of the first one as your tutorial only describes installation of a single distro (LL).  I have created separate partitions for swap and bios_grub, and am installing the OSes as root, i.e. no separate home partitions.  I want to install up to 20 distros on an old laptop (Dell D620) to show friends the diversity available within Linux.  I tried AustinTexas' advice for the multiple-distro install but without luck. 

Many thanks
Mike

[AustinTexas]

I am not a fan of installing Grub to a partition.

AustinTexas, does that mean you haven't created the 16MB Bios_grub partition on the GTP disk, as described in goldfinger's tutorial?

That means that after you create the bios_grub partition, you follow the tutorial which says to install your bootloader (Grub) to the device, not the partition.

Device for boot loader installation = /dev/sdX (Substitute correct drive letter that you're installing to in place of "X" without any partition number after it'.  Eg. "/dev/sda", not "/dev/sda1".)

[m654321]

Thanks for clarifying that - it seems that I've followed what you mentioned.  I need to go back and check again.
Still unclear why I'm unable to get past a two distro installation. I'll let you know when I have some joy with it...

[m654321]

Instead of using gparted to set up the partitions in advance, prior to the install of several distros, can I just create a new partition for each distro from the unallocated space, as I add each new distro?

[AustinTexas]

Sure, you can. But you run into the potential problem that various distributions have different installation programs, and different methods of creating the partitions needed, so gparted might be the easier path for creating the partitions - either all at once, or before each installation.

[m654321]

Many thanks AustinTexas - I used your second method where the last installed distro is 'in charge' of the grub screen. Guess what - you know why it wasn't working - the DVDs were duds! I reburned the iso onto fresh DVD-R blanks and everything is fine now with the installs - I've now installed several distros (eight of them) and it seemed really straightforward. So far, I've formatted the remaining unallocated disk space, bit by bit, as I go along with each new distro install - seems to work better than say creating 20 x 20480 MB partitions in advance.

Though most distros' names appear correctly in the grubscreen, some are incorrect, e.g.
ElementaryOS-Freya appears as Ubuntu 14.04
Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 appears as Ubuntu 16.04, which is confusing as I have Ubuntu 16.04 itself installed.

How do I edit the grub screen to correct these distro names?
I tried the following (which I used in a UEFI Win/LL dual-boot), but it didn't work - for example for changing the grub-listed Ubuntu to Elementary:

Code:

sudo su
sudo sed -i 's/Ubuntu/Elementary/g' /boot/grub/grub.cfg

I should mention that I have a separate bios_grub partition (/dev/sda1) as outlined by goldfinger in the tutorial.

Many thanks for any feedback on how to edit the distro names, as they appear in the grubscreen

Cheers
Mike

PS. I haven't implemented SuperGrub2 yet, as so far I don't appear to need it (i.e. none of the distros are hidden from the grubscreen)

[AustinTexas]

Editing the titles for the Grub menuentries is a chore.
You would have to open /boot/grub/grub.cfg in your text editor.

Code:

gksudo leafpad /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Then find each menuentry you want to edit.  Anything inside the 'quote' marks can be edited.
EXAMPLE:
menuentry 'Korora release 23 (Coral) (on /dev/sda4)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os
can be changed to:
menuentry 'Korora 23 on /dev/sda4' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os

Then after your edits are complete, save a copy of /boot/grub/grub.cfg to make editing a bit easier the next time you have to do it - which will be every time you do "sudo update-grub".

[AustinTexas]

There is a little trick that you might want to use.  You can assign a hotkey to each menuentry when you edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg
EXAMPLE:
menuentry 'Korora 23 on /dev/sda4' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-simple-5c185ea1-b08c-44cb-9279-cdb87e4168af' { etc...
can be assigned the hotkey "a" like this:
menuentry 'a - Korora 23 on /dev/sda4' --hotkey=a --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-simple-5c185ea1-b08c-44cb-9279-cdb87e4168af' { etc...
So you don't have to arrow down and press ENTER, you just press "a" to boot Korora.
You can use a single letter, a to z, or a single number, 0 to 9. However, you can't use "c" or "e" because those already have a Grub menu function assigned - ("command line" and "edit")