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2005-05-29

Dual booting Fedora and Mandriva

Last weekend I've downloaded both Mandriva 2005 LE DVD and Fedora Core 3 DVD and installed them on my spare pc. Problem was that I only had 1 SCSI HD and when I installed the second Linux distibution, its loader did not recognize the other one. So, below is how I tinkered with grub and finally made it work in anyway I wanted.

I posted an e-mail to Mandriva expert group and asked for help. Someone extended his handed and suggested that I copy Mandriva boot files into Fedora boot partition and add an entry for it in the grub. I did it and it worked.

Below is from my e-mail to the grup but note that boot loader application 'grub' does not care if you have an ide or scsi. First harddrive will be shown as hd0 (not as sd0 as one might expect).

-----------------------------------------
[root@ahlnx ~] fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 36.4 GB, 36420075520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4427 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Cap. Id System Holds
----------------------------------------------------------------
/dev/sda1 300MB 83 Linux (Mandriva /boot)
/dev/sda2 12.5GB 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 100MB 83 Linux (Fedora /boot)
/dev/sda4 22.5GB 8e Linux LVM (Fedora /)
/dev/sda5 2.0GB 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda6 10.0GB 83 Linux (Mandriva /)

First I mounted /dev/sda1 - where my current Mandriva boot images are
hold - to Fedora & copied everything under it to /boot/Mandriva:

mkdir /mnt/bootMandriva
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/bootMandriva
cd /mnt/bootMandriva
rsync -va . /boot/Mandriva

Then, I added these lines in /etc/grub.conf
title Mandrive 2005
root (hd0,2)
kernel /Mandriva/vmlinuz-2.6.11-6mdksmp ro root=/dev/sda6
initrd /Mandriva/initrd-2.6.11-6mdksmp.img

Happy ending, eh? Well, not so quick...Once I got on to Mandriva, I
could not go back to Fedora as it did not know anything about Fedora!

So, I tried the same approach by mounting fedora boot partion /dev/sda3
to Mandriva and adding an entry to /etc/lilo.conf after copying 3 files
that I thought would do the trick:
config-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp
initrd-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp.img
vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp
System.map-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp

Unfortunately I got errors during boot...

I'll keep on troubleshooting this as it serves as a good learning
practice for me. For the time being, I loaded grub back (to MBR):

[root@ahlnx ~] grub
[root@ahlnx ~] grub> root (hd0,2)
[root@ahlnx ~] grub> setup (hd0)
[root@ahlnx ~] grub> quit

root (hd0,2) tells grub that my boot partition is /dev/sda3
setup (hd0) loads grub into MBR (Master Boot Record) so that it will run next time I boot.

After rebooting, I am back to Fedora.
-----------------------------------------

Well, actually after a little bit more digging, I realized that I did not need to copy boot files from the linux boot partition at all. So, I added the following entry into /etc/grub.conf on Fedora's boot sector (/dev/sda3)

title Mandriva 2005 (From /dev/sda1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz ro root=/dev/sda6
initrd /initrd.img
And just to prove it to myself that I could it do the same from Mandriva side, I added the following entry into /boot/grub/menu.lst on Mandriva's boot sector (/dev/sda1)

title Fedora (Boot from Fedora /boot)
kernel (hd0,2)/vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
initrd (hd0,2)/initrd-2.6.11-1.27_FC3smp.img

The interesting thing is the part which reads root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
This notation seems to be specific to my installation and Grub. Lilo does not recognize it as a valid root (/) partition.

2005-05-19

Google Labs

Google Labs is Google's technology playground. Currently they are testing personalized home pages. Check it out...

2005-05-18

Yahoo! Messenger Beta - Fixed

I fixed my connection problem by choosing "No Proxies" instead of "Firewall with no proxies" which used to be my default in the previous version. The new build number is: 7,0,0,242!

Yahoo! Messenger Beta

Yahoo! Messenger Beta is available for download from Yahoo. I tried it but seems to have some connection issues.



I checked Yahoo's page. Apparently there is a page for those people who are having connection issues with Beta but guess what. It is not accessible: "The requested URL /pager/download/beta/more.html was not found on this server."

Arrrgh!

2005-05-16

Traffic & Weather info on Google Map

Traffic/Weather info on Google Map


I found out about this cool web site called Google-Traffic.com . Apparently, someone found yet another useful way to hack Google Map to display Traffic & Weather info on it. In fact, you can also display such info on Yahoo Maps too. Pretty neat trick!

2005-05-14

Scot's Newsletter - Customizing Firefox

Scot's Newsletter | The Best Of | Customizing Firefox I'm posting this for my own reference. Scot has a nice list of customization on this web site. I am also a subscriber of his monthly newsletter. Check out this month's issue here and if you like it you can subscribe to it here.

Google puts the brake on Web Accelerator

Google puts the brake on Web Accelerator The Register
Wow. My site took the greatest page hit when I posted the issue I discovered with Google Web Accelerator. I stopped using Google Web Accelerator since then.

Apparently Google has disabled downloads of its Web Accelerator software less than a week after introducing the service. The suspension follows reports that the software was caching sensitive content, such as user control panels to online forums. Continue at source

2005-05-08

Have some fun: Rocketboom

I learnt about a vlog site called Rocketboom. They have 3mins long funny vlogs everyday. Oh, do not forget to check out yet another histerical 'numa numa' video.

2005-05-07

Google Web Accelerator - 2

Citrix Error Posted by Hello

OK, it's been a few days since I installed Google Web Accelerator . I have not had a chance to use my pc much but it claims that it saved me 1.9 mins.

Anyway, last night I started seeing the error above when I was trying to connect to my office via Citrix. As soon as I shutdown the Google Web Accelerator, it started working. Hmm, I tried it again today and the same story. I guess I will report it to Google...

2005-05-04

Google Web Accelerator

Google Web Accelerator Posted by Hello

Here is yet another Beta tool from Google: Web Accelerator . Hmm, maybe I should really go ahead and buy their stock...

You may ask, 'hey I already have Broadband! Why would I need a web accelerator?'. My answer would be 'If you are asking that, you probably do not need it'.

Honestly, as a broadband user, I do not really need it but as a curious technologist, indeed I went ahead and intalled it. I read the help & faq, it looks like a giant proxy server implementation to me. I'll post my findings later on...

2005-05-03

War Nerd - Glory to the Turks!

eXile - Issue #212 - War Nerd - Glory to the Turks! - By Gary Brecher

A friend of mine forwarded this link to me. There are a few small mistakes (it was Ottomans that captured Istanbul not Seljuks) but it is a fun article about Turkish History...

Circumventing Group Policy Settings

Mark's Blog: Circumventing Group Policy Settings



Group policy settings are an integral part of any Windows-based IT environment. If you’re a network administrator you use them to enforce corporate security and desktop management policy, and if you’re a user you’ve almost certainly been frustrated by the limitations imposed by those policies. Regardless of which you are, you should be aware that if the users in your network belong to the local administrator’s group they can get around policies any time they want. Continue at source...

2005-05-02

Avoid Machines, Find-A-Human

Aunty did it again. Here is a link to the database to
Find-A-Human for some Integrated Voice Response (IVR) systems. It's a nice list if you need to talk to a human in let's say Bank Of America, Citibank, Chase, Amazon, American Express or Best Buy? Check out the link above. There are about 94 companies in the list right now...