linux booting menu

[kungfu]

I've got PCLinuxOS installed as the other operating system besides win xp...
I had lilo installed on the boot sector of the drive where PCLinuxOS was installed...
i got tired with lilo errors and had to overwrite it with grub boot loader...
I somehow managed to get grub installed and running... i still have windows bootloader in MBR... and it redirects it to grub... and i can start boot PCLinuxOS with grub commands...

now the main problem... i want grub to display a menu list like it usually does instead of the commandline... its really boring typing commands whenever u wanna boot PCLinuxOS...
there's no file as such /etc/grub.conf.... all i have is /boot/grub/menu.lst.example...

now ppl... do i need to do some editing or create a file something like /etc/grub.conf or something... i'm not sure... tat's y i'm posting here...

looking for some real solutions from u "tech" guys...

thx

 

[saikee]

The offical Grub configuration file is actually menu.lst

grub.conf is only used by the Red Hat family and its variants and it should have been symbolic-linked to menu.lst but I notice some don't do it.

You can set up menu.lst. If it is in 3rd partition of the 1st disk and therefore known to Grub as (hd0,2) you can put Grub in the MBR by commands in a Grub prompt

root (hd0,2)
setup (hd0)

You can write your own menu.lst or grub.conf

You may find a collection of tips from the last link of my signature.

 

[kungfu]

"you can put Grub in the MBR by commands"
i don't want grub in the MBR... i'm happy with the windows bootloader in the MBR...
and wat exactly wud the commands u gave would do... if these commands will write grub to the MBR then sorry... its not wat i want... all i needed is the grub menu...
wud u plz gimme details on how shud i write a "menu.lst" file...

my linux resides in (hd0,7) and even grub is installed in (hd0,7)
and the kernel is in /dev/hda8/boot/vmlinuz.... etc etc...

how bout writing a menu.lst file for me ???

 

[saikee]

A Grub menu.lst is dead easy to write. The information supplied in Post #3 means your linux would boot by

My PCLinuxOS in (hd0,7)
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz ro root=/dev/hda8

change hda8 to sda8 if you have a Sata. I assume your first disk is hda but it could be hdb if you put a CD drive as a Master and the hard disk as a slave.

I run 0.91 and 0.92 versions of PCLinuxOS in my box. Their boot loaders are both Lilo and they both use initrd too. Somehow your version of PCLinuxOS could be different.

If you keep Winodws MBR and want to use it to boot PCLinuxOS then it is a long road to go. As this approach requires a working version of PCLinuxOS available first, Grub installed inside (hd0,7), Grub's first 512 bytes are copied into the "C" drive of Winodws, Boot.ini is be unhidden, edited and hidden again etc...

You could save a lot of grief by asking Windows to boot up a primary data-only partition and has Grub there to take over the booting. This is last of the three tmethods I described in 2nd link of my signature.

You can have Grub without the need of installing a Linux too. Take a look at this thread.