seeking help with GRUB/GRUB2 detecting bootable, recovery. and menu entries

SaintDanBert · 02-15-2024, 04:05 PM

Will someone please help me sort out my GRUB/GRUB2 configuration on my primary laptop workstation?

My priimary workstation is a laptop. I'm trying to configure things so that they are more "recoverable" and that startup is more indicative of the way that I prefer to work.

What I want to do:

write whatever to all drives so that GRUB will detect as bootable
place appropriate files so that all drives enable "recovery" if the primary bootable fails including linux parts, clonezilla, systemrescue, etc.
enabld bpth "current release" and "previous release" with minimal duplication of files or configuration.
configure an appropriate GRUB menu regardless of where I'm booting
configure GRUB so that future updates preserve the menus etc.

My configuration:

a 1TB HDD as /dev/sda
a 512GB SSD as /dev/nvme0
a 512GB SSD as /dev/nvme1

I have Linux Mint 21.3 installed to /dev/sda.
/dev/nvme0 has /boot/efi and / file systems
/dev/nvme1 has /home

Code:

prompt$ sudo lsblk
***********
NAME          SIZE FSTYPE PARTLABEL MOUNTPOINTS
sda         931.5G                  
├─sda1          1G vfat   RESERVED  
├─sda2          1G vfat   Spare-EFI 
├─sda3          1G ext4   S76_boot  /boot
├─sda4       64.2G ext4   S76_var   /var
├─sda5      265.8G ext4   My_Work1  /work1
├─sda6         16G swap   S76_sawp  [SWAP]
├─sda7        245G ext4   My_Work2  /work2
└─sda8      337.5G ext4   My_Vault  /vault
nvme1n1     465.8G                  
└─nvme1n1p1 465.8G ext4   S76_Home  /home
nvme0n1     465.8G                  
├─nvme0n1p1   512M vfat   S76_EFI   /boot/efi
└─nvme0n1p2 465.3G ext4   S76_root  /

Thank you in advance.
~~~ 0;-} Dan

yancek · 02-16-2024, 06:59 AM

I'm not really sure what your intentions are as you say you want Grub to detect 'drives' as bootable yet indicate you have only one OS installed so that is all that can be booted?

You want to be able to access clonezilla and systemrescue cd? You can do that with Grub is you have both iso files somewhere on one of your drive partitions if you manually create it.

What are you referring to when you say 'current release' and 'previous release' as you indicate you have only Mint 21.3?

Quote:

configure an appropriate GRUB menu regardless of where I'm booting

That comment is too vague. What difference would a physical location make? Explain the 'where' part.

Quote:

configure GRUB so that future updates preserve the menus etc.

Are you referring to changes made to the menuentries in the grub.cfg file? You can make changes in files in the /etc/grub.d file or do the not recommended method of directly editing grub.cfg. Problem with the 2nd option is that when you run grub-mkconfig the file will be overwritten.

From the information you posted, the only drive that is 'bootable' is nvme0n1 so perhaps clarify exactly what you want.

mrmazda · 02-18-2024, 09:45 AM

My procedure seems to cover most of your bases. Key points:

only one ESP is needed per PC
only one Grub installation is needed per PC
symlinks to initrds and kernels are employed for current kernel boots
admin maintenance is minimal for a multiboot context