[SOLVED] Dual-boot or multi-boot of Linux Lite (and others) with Windows 7

[br1anstorm]

Thanks, gold_finger.  You and I have both been in both forums, and thanks for your "edit" advice.  I plan to try that alternative route.  Will report progress in both threads.

meanwhile -- and equally speculatively - I offer just a few observations on your thought-process.

.....
Based on your description of problem, I'm going to make a purely speculative guess at a possible solution.  Here's my thought process.

From the sounds of it, if you choose to boot Linux, EasyBCD passes booting responsibility to grub which then boots the distro.  If more than one distro uses grub2, it only recognizes and lists one of them for booting.  If the distro's grub that takes over has been updated to include boot choices for other installed distros, they will then show on the grub menu and can boot from there.  (That is my speculation.  I don't know that to be true.)

Thst coincides with my understanding.  It's also the basis for the alternative solution (which is to put LL into Mint's grub boot menu and it will then show as a choice when EasyBCD hands the booting on from the Windows bootloader screen to the grub2).

I'm guessing that when you choose Mint from EasyBCD menu, it either boots straight into Mint, or shows grub menu with only Mint choices for booting and no choices to boot LL.  I say that because I'm guessing you never went into Mint and updated grub to include LL because you knew ahead of time that LL would not boot properly that way.

You give me too much credit!  I didn't know or even assume that.  I just understood, and EasyBCD leads one to believe, that if you tell it which partition to look in for the distro you choose, it goes (I know not how....) directly to that location and triggers that distro's bootloader.  Evidently it doesn't quite do that.  But equally, the EasyBCD guidance doesn't tell you that if you install more than one Grub2 distro then you have to update the grub of one (the first?) of them so that it also lists the other.

What happens when I boot after setting up the second, and/or third OS in EasyBCD is that I first see a Windows bootloader (MBR?) screen which lists all the OSs I had listed in EasyBCD.  Clicking on Win7 boots up Windows, end of story.  When I had only added Mint, of course, the Windows boot screen showed Win7 and Mint.  Choosing Mint took me on to the Grub2 screen offering Mint (and still also listed Win7) and I was able to boot into it.  Then I added Lite - as the third OS.  When I chose it on the first (windows MBR) screen, the Grub2 screen appeared, but still only offered the Mint boot options.... and listed Win7.  In other words, EasyBCD still only "sees" the one Grub2, which in this case was Mint's.

Thus although I have installed Lite, and its Grub, on a separate partition (and can access those files/folders via Mint's file manager) I cannot, at present, boot into Lite at all.

I agree that - in the short term - the simple solution, if it works, is to add Lite, which I installed second, to Mint's Grub which was there first and which EasyBCD seems able to find.  If that works it works..... and all I would need to do is amend the listing in EasyBCD's "menu" to show Mint and Lite as being in effect a single choice.  Once I get to (Mint's) grub2 screen, I should see both Mint and Lite listed, having manually copied and pasted Lite in and done sudo update grub .  So at that point I then make my "secondary" choice of OS to boot, as between Mint and Lite.

If it doesn't work, then I may try your route.  The other alternative would be to go back to almost the beginning, uninstall both Mint and Lite, reinstall them with Lite first, and then use the same manual copy-and-paste to insert Mint into LL's Grub2.....which is another variation of the austin.texas suggestion, just making Lite's grub the "lead" one.

After that, my ambition for the next stage is to add PCLinuxOS, which uses Grub Legacy, on the remaining empty partition.  If my understanding of EasyBCD is correct, it will "see" that distro, with its Grub Legacy,  as being separate and different from Mint and Lite, so I may be taken straight there if I choose to boot that OS.  We shall see.

As I said, watch this space.  I thought this exercise would be an "Easy" jog in the park.  It's becoming more like a marathon.  But so far, I'm not feeling any pain.....
[/quote]

[gold_finger]

If it doesn't work, then I may try your route.  The other alternative would be to go back to almost the beginning, uninstall both Mint and Lite, reinstall them with Lite first, and then use the same manual copy-and-paste to insert Mint into LL's Grub2.....which is another variation of the austin.texas suggestion, just making Lite's grub the "lead" one.

I don't think you'll need to start from scratch re-installing LL and Mint.  If editing Mint's grub doesn't work, then my alternative above will accomplish same thing as if you started from scratch.  (Delete Mint's grub from install;  then clear/delete the Linux boot choice(s) that were in EasyBCD; then have EasyBCD search for bootable Linux again and it should only find LL's grub, which will hopefully be able to boot both Linux's.

[br1anstorm]

Hmmm....

I haven't embarked on austin.texas' "alternative solution" yet, though that's what I was aiming to do.  Before I started, I just thought well, I'll take another sneak peek into the LL grub file to see if I can see and interpret the menu entries that are in there.

And sure enough, as I think you had correctly guessed or presumed, LL's Grub file does indeed list in its menu entries not only LL and Win7, but also Linux Mint.  So when I installed LL, I guess it automatically spotted and included the Mint installation that was already there?  I certainly didn't "sudo update" LL's Grub, because after I installed it I was unable to boot into LL since EasyBCD did not see or offer it... 

So just to be clear:  did LL see and include Mint in its grub automatically (ie without "sudo update-grub") as soon as I installed it?

Incidentally just to be clear about the installs, I have Mint and its Grub on dev/sda6, and LL with its Grub on dev/sda7, then dev/sda8 is still empty and earmarked for PCLOS, and dev/sda9 is the shared DATA partition.

I went one step further, just because I was curious. 

I did not uninstall Mint's grub (as your advice suggested).  Being naturally cautious, I hate removing/deleting /uninstalling in case I can't later recover or reinstate things!  I just went into Win7 and removed the "Mint" entry from the EasyBCD menu, leaving just Win7 and Linux Lite as listed options (it is quite clear that removing the Mint entry from EasyBCD's menu does not delete the OS itself).  Then in the EasyBCD menu I selected Linux Lite to boot into.  I wanted to see if EasyBCD would know - or would now go and look for - Linux Lite's grub.

As usual, first up came the Windows bootloader screen (now showing only Win7 and LL).  I selected LL.  What came up?  Yes, Mint's Grub screen again (still showing no LL). 

What does that prove?  It seems that even though I had taken Mint off the EasyBCD menu, EasyBCD still goes to the Mint Grub which sits, with Mint itself, in dev/sda6!

Not sure how interesting or useful that knowledge is.  It suggests that EasyBCD doesn't, perhaps, "search" for  Grubs (or once it has a grub2 identified, it doesn't then look for others!). 

But this does confirm that either I have to insert LL manually into that Mint grub, as austin.texas recommends, since Mint evidently didn't see and automatically incorporate LL when I installed LL;  or I have to make LL's Grub the "go-to" one for EasyBCD, which - as you have advised - means actually removing/uninstalling Mint's grub files.

So I'm back to the angle which originally surfaced in separate earlier threads about the way in which LL's grub plays with other Linux grubs.  As I understand that issue, put simply, LL works well as "lead" grub and sees and boots other distros;  but the grubs of other distros (like Mint) don't always see or work well with LL. 

If true, that may be an argument for going the gold_finger route (making LL the lead, since it has already seen and included Mint) rather than the austin.texas route (manually inserting LL into Mint's Grub, doing sudo update and then relying on Mint's grub as the sole Grub2 and booting into LL from there).

If I do go forward with the manual-insertion of LL into Mint's boot menu (the austin.texas route) having now looked into the actual "texts" in the grub files of both distros, I will need to get absolute clarity on where to paste-in the additional menu entry.  But I will put that into a separate post.

The saga continues......

[gold_finger]

Before I started, I just thought well, I'll take another sneak peek into the LL grub file to see if I can see and interpret the menu entries that are in there.

And sure enough, as I think you had correctly guessed or presumed, LL's Grub file does indeed list in its menu entries not only LL and Win7, but also Linux Mint.  So when I installed LL, I guess it automatically spotted and included the Mint installation that was already there?

Yes -- when you installed, it looked for and listed any other OS's on the computer and added them to grub menu.  If you had installed Mint second, Mint would have done the same thing.  When you install PCLOS, it will do that too and it's grub will list Windows, Mint and LL.

I did not uninstall Mint's grub (as your advice suggested).  Being naturally cautious, I hate removing/deleting /uninstalling in case I can't later recover or reinstate things!  I just went into Win7 and removed the "Mint" entry from the EasyBCD menu, leaving just Win7 and Linux Lite as listed options (it is quite clear that removing the Mint entry from EasyBCD's menu does not delete the OS itself).  Then in the EasyBCD menu I selected Linux Lite to boot into.  I wanted to see if EasyBCD would know - or would now go and look for - Linux Lite's grub.

As usual, first up came the Windows bootloader screen (now showing only Win7 and LL).  I selected LL.  What came up?  Yes, Mint's Grub screen again (still showing no LL). 

What does that prove?

I don't "know" for sure what EasyBCD is doing, but from prior discussion I suspected that once it set itself to use one, it would point to that one for any others it finds and lists later.  That was my reasoning for suggesting to delete Mints grub.  That way it wouldn't be able to find it anymore when told to refresh the menu and would be forced to find only LL's grub, causing it to then use that.  So, your experiment with just deleting the Mint entry (without actually deleting Mint's grub) seems to confirm my suspicion.

If you end up deciding to try my method, clear Mint and LL entries from EasyBCD, then have it look for OS's and make brand new entries.  My guess is that it will only list Windows and LL, but when you select LL it's grub menu will then show entry for Mint.  If PCLOS uses legacy grub, then it sounds like you'll be able to add that directly to EasyBCD.  You can also add it to LL's grub if you want to by booting into LL and running "sudo update-grub" after you've installed it.

However, like I said before, I do think austin.texas's solution will be simpler.

As I understand that issue, put simply, LL works well as "lead" grub and sees and boots other distros;  but the grubs of other distros (like Mint) don't always see or work well with LL.

It's not that other distros fail to "see or work well with LL".  One or two standard lines in grub code that all distros look to and use to boot others they find was altered/customized in LL -- so they don't work as expected anymore when pointed to by other distros -- causing failure to boot LL.  The change(s) to LL were made to make things easier for new Linux users who dual-boot with Windows.  I don't dual-boot with Windows, so I don't really know what about the menu is "easier" than what one would see without the change(s).

When I first started using Linux and did dual-boot with Windows, I honestly didn't think there was anything particularly confusing or difficult about the grub menu I was seeing -- so not sure if such modifications are really necessary.

If I do go forward with the manual-insertion of LL into Mint's boot menu (the austin.texas route) having now looked into the actual "texts" in the grub files of both distros, I will need to get absolute clarity on where to paste-in the additional menu entry.  But I will put that into a separate post.

His post here pretty much spells it out.

• Boot into Mint and open a terminal
  
• Enter "gksu gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom" (without the quotes) to open the 40_custom file as root.  This is what you'll see:
  

Code:

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

• Now open Mint's file manager and open the LL root partition
  
• Navigate to LL's  /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and open it.
  
• Find first menu entry and copy it in its entirety (including the last "}" as shown in his post)
  
• Paste that into your opened 40_custom file right under the last comment line.
  
• If can't paste, start again but right-click LL root partition and choose "Open as root/administrator"; then copy/paste the menu entry again.
  
• Save file and run "sudo update-grub" in Mint terminal.
  
• Next reboot should then have a working LL entry in Mint's grub.
  

[br1anstorm]

Well, gold_finger, the story continues.....

Latest chapter.  I tried the "austin.texas" route of inserting the LL entry into Mint's Grub boot menu.  I successfully copied and pasted into the 40_custom file and saved it.  But then in the terminal I got this:

Code:

(gedit:2731): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to store changes into `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: Failed to create file '/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.I614AY': No such file or directory

(gedit:2731): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to set the permissions of `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: No such file or directory

(gedit:2731): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to store changes into `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: Failed to create file '/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.O5O0AY': No such file or directory

(gedit:2731): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to set the permissions of `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: No such file or directory

I have no idea what all that means.  But I assume the inserting/pasting was unsuccessful.  Your most recent post appeared to suggest that it might not work.  So I am about to try your advice to

start again but right-click LL root partition and choose "Open as root/administrator"; then copy and paste the menu entry again.

Will post follow-up once I have tried that.

[br1anstorm]

Okay..... next episode.

Went into LL root, found and re-copied the entry, then re-pasted it via the Mint terminal into the Mint Grub boot menu.  Seemed to work this time.

So I then did the "sudo update-grub" in the Mint terminal;  and this is what I got in the terminal screen.

Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.19.0-32-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.19.0-32-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.elf
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
  No volume groups found
Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda1
Found Windows Recovery Environment (loader) on /dev/sda4
Found Linux Lite 2.6 (14.04) on /dev/sda7
error: out of memory.
error: syntax error.
error: Incorrect command.
error: syntax error.
Syntax error at line 386
Syntax errors are detected in generated GRUB config file.
Ensure that there are no errors in /etc/default/grub
and /etc/grub.d/* files or please file a bug report with
/boot/grub/grub.cfg.new file attached.
done

I'm posting this before I reboot, so I don't know what, if any, change or update has actually happened in Mint's Grub boot menu.  I guess I will discover any change after I reboot.  But I do wonder, and worry, about whatever the "syntax error at line 386" and "in the generated Grub config file" might be.

Are these a consequence of the peculiarities or tweaking of the design of the LL Grub, I wonder, and an example of the 'not playing nicely' problem?

EDIT/UPDATE:  Well, didn't take long to find out the result.  Rebooted, got to Mint's Grub screen, and...... no change.  The listing of options (Mint, recovery mode, memtest, Win7 etc) all exactly the same as before.  No trace of Linux Lite as an additional option.  So the alternative route of inserting LL into Mint's Grub, seems not to have worked, which is a pity.  But what puzzles me is why it worked for austin.texas (who suggested it) and isn't working for me.  The "syntax error" must surely be part of the reason?

Just in case it helps with the detective work, once I had rebooted into Mint I went into the file manager and had a look into its /boot/grub.  In there I noticed two grub (menu?) files, grub.cfg and grub.cfg.new.  The latter was modified today. ......and it includes the Linux Lite entry - in fact more than one.  And line 386 in that cfg.new file is actually the very last line, not a part of the body of the LL entry.  I have no idea what this means....!  I can copy and paste the whole of that grub.cfg.new file if that would help to figure out the error.

[br1anstorm]

Just one additional or supplementary question on the "gold_finger route" to make all this work, since I have been thinking-through what to do while awaiting comments on my description of the unsuccessful efforts so far.

This may be an obvious, or dumb, question.

If - as suggested - I go into Mint and delete all its grub packages (and remove the Mint entry from EasyBCD), then even if EasyBCD is able to find Linux Lite, will Linux Lite (whose grub does currently list Mint) then be able to boot Mint into action?  Doesn't LL's grub need to see and hand over the booting task to Mint's own grub?  Or can LL's grub boot Mint up if Mint itself doesn't have any grub packages?

[gold_finger]

Well, didn't take long to find out the result.  Rebooted, got to Mint's Grub screen, and...... no change.  The listing of options (Mint, recovery mode, memtest, Win7 etc) all exactly the same as before.  No trace of Linux Lite as an additional option.  So the alternative route of inserting LL into Mint's Grub, seems not to have worked, which is a pity.  But what puzzles me is why it worked for austin.texas (who suggested it) and isn't working for me.  The "syntax error" must surely be part of the reason?

Just in case it helps with the detective work, once I had rebooted into Mint I went into the file manager and had a look into its /boot/grub.  In there I noticed two grub (menu?) files, grub.cfg and grub.cfg.new.  The latter was modified today. ......and it includes the Linux Lite entry - in fact more than one.  And line 386 in that cfg.new file is actually the very last line, not a part of the body of the LL entry.  I have no idea what this means....!  I can copy and paste the whole of that grub.cfg.new file if that would help to figure out the error.

"syntax error" probably the cause.  Could be (and probably is) something stupid like a missing parenthesis, a space in the wrong place, etc.  Suggest you copy/paste the full contents of that grub.cfg.new file to site like pastebin, then post link to it back here and also to the Mint forum for austin.texas to take a look at too.  Before posting the output, open gedit and changes preferences so it shows the line numbers.  That will make finding the mistake a lot easier for us.  Gedit -> Edit -> Preferences -> View -> Display line numbers.

Just one additional or supplementary question on the "gold_finger route" to make all this work, since I have been thinking-through what to do while awaiting comments on my description of the unsuccessful efforts so far.

This may be an obvious, or dumb, question.

If - as suggested - I go into Mint and delete all its grub packages (and remove the Mint entry from EasyBCD), then even if EasyBCD is able to find Linux Lite, will Linux Lite (whose grub does currently list Mint) then be able to boot Mint into action?  Doesn't LL's grub need to see and hand over the booting task to Mint's own grub?  Or can LL's grub boot Mint up if Mint itself doesn't have any grub packages?

Grub packages in Mint are not needed for LL to be able to boot it.  I have one computer with AntiX and Arch on it.  Installed Arch second and did not install any grub packages for it.  AntiX boots it no problem.


I've got a computer with LL and Mint on it with LL's grub currently in charge.  Going to try austin.texas method on mine to see what happens switching control to Mint.  Will report back when done.

[gold_finger]

Just completed austin.texas method -- installed Mint's grub to /dev/sda (to take control away from LL), copied menuentry from LL's grub.cfg to /etc/grub.d/40_custom file in Mint, then updated Mint's grub.  Rebooted and resulting menu showed choice for LL that the 30_os-prober (in Mint's /etc/grub.d) finds and another entry for LL at end of list -- which is the one shown by the 40_custom file that was manually made.  That last LL choice does work.

My computer has Mint Xfce 17.1 and LL2.2 on it, but procedure should work no differently for you.  Here is my new 40_custom file in Mint for you to compare to:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry 'Description:    Linux Lite 2.2 GNU/Linux' --class description_ --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-8167293e-8054-40fa-8598-d871252f3850' {
    recordfail
    load_video
    gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode
    insmod gzio
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod ext2
    set root='hd0,msdos8'
    if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
      search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos8 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos8 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos8  8167293e-8054-40fa-8598-d871252f3850
    else
      search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 8167293e-8054-40fa-8598-d871252f3850
    fi
    linux    /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=8167293e-8054-40fa-8598-d871252f3850 ro  quiet splash $vt_handoff
    initrd    /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic
}

A thought occurred to me while running test.  Instead of deleting Mint's grub and then switching to LL's, why not just delete LL's grub.  Thinking is that if there is no altered grub to find, then Mint will just boot it normally.  Going to test that out next and will report back.

[gold_finger]

Next test complete.

In Mint, got rid of the 40_custom file first to make sure that doesn't come into play.

Then booted into LL and purged all grub packages with this command:

Code:

sudo apt-get purge grub*

A long list of things showed in terminal, which I ignored, but near end it said that it was going to purge 5-6 grub packages and asked for "y" or "n" confirmation.  I hit "y" and let it remove them.  (I only briefly looked at the other stuff that showed in window and got the impression it related to available updates.  I have not updated the LL on this computer for 1-2 months.  So I just ignored it.)  For whatever reason it also installed some ubiquity-artwork during the purge.  I just let it do that.

Note:  during purge process a screen will pop-up asking if you want to delete grub.cfg file (if I remember right).  Answer is defaulted to "No".  Change that to "Yes" and hit enter.

Then rebooted into Mint and did sudo update-grub again.  This time, without the 40_custom file in play, the only LL listing that resulted in the menu was the one found by 30_os-prober (which is the file that normally looks for and adds other found OS's to the menu).  It found LL as it should.  Rebooted computer and chose the LL listing and it worked.  The only thing different this time is that you don't have the normal LL splash screen -- it shows the lines of output going down the screen during startup (which is normally what's going on behind the scenes of the splash screen -- so it's not a problem).

So, you can accomplish goal by either austin.texas method (easiest), by deleting Mint's grub and letting LL's grub be in charge, or by just deleting LL's grub and letting Mint continue as-is (second easiest).  Just remember to update grub in Mint after deleting LL's grub.