[vox-tech] Replacing FC with Kubuntu in Dual Boot env.

[Jeff Newmiller]

Alex Mandel wrote:
> 
> Rod Roark wrote:
> 
>> On Wednesday 11 January 2006 01:44 am, Alex Mandel wrote:
>> ...
>>
>>> Thats my thinking, just tell kubuntu to use the partition where FC is 
>>> and it should take care of the rest, then when it asks if you want 
>>> grub installed opt-out...
>>
>>
>>
>> That doesn't sound right.  Surely you want the grub package
>> installed with your Ubuntu distribution.  The installer will
>> notice that you have a Windows partition and should create a boot
>> entry for it.
>>
>> -- Rod
> 
> 
> But he already has grub, hmm. Does grub sit in the MBR or is there just 
> a pointer to it? I guess if it is in the MBR and there are no other 
> linux distros on the machine it would just get overwritten by the ubuntu 
>  installer, is that correct?

A bootstrap portion of grub is often installed in the MBR... the rest
sits in one of the Linux partitions, and the bootstrap has to
a) know where to look, and b) be able to load it from there.
Since he is replacing FC, I think he would want to overwrite the
existing grub bootstrap so that all the linkages would be
configured correctly.

Mark Kim always used to advocate putting the grub bootstrap
at the beginning of a Linux partition and leaving the MBR
alone.  I think this relies on using fdisk to configure
the Linux partion that you have installed grub on
as the one which the standard MBR code should load
the operating system from.  The standard MBR code
then loads part one of the GRUB or LILO boot code from
the partition, as though it were loading the Windows boot
code from there.  The main differences are that Windows anti-virus
programs don't freak out about the MBR being nonstandard
and the boot process takes a few milliseconds longer.

I don't remember having such problems with altered MBRs,
but I haven't done much dual booting in awhile, either.

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