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grub package

kernel update failure, cannot boot ubuntu 9.10

Asked by keepitsimpleengr

I upgraded my amd64 ubuntu 9.10 system using update-manager.

Part of the update was the upgrade to kernel 2.6.31-17

During the upgrade, I selected "distribution's menu.lst…"

After the update was completed, the system would not boot. The screen messages indicated it could not find the partition with root.

Because I boot multiple operating systems and Ubuntu is capricious about installing grub, I use UUID to identify partitions on this system.

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keepitsimpleengr (keepitsimpleengineer) said : 		#1

The problem was that update-manager rewrote the menu.lst substituting a specious UUID (non-existent on my system) for the root partition UUID. Hence the failure to boot and terse error message.

Work around:
1] Boot from CD; ubuntu live, knoppix ⋯, or similar.
2] Open terminal, logon as superuser
3] Verify UUID with blkid command
4] Mount partition with /boot
5] Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst replacing specious UUID with correct UUID
6] Shutdown and remove boot CD
6] Reboot system

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#2

> selected "distribution's menu.lst
Well, I'd assume this will overwrite customizations of course.
> capricious about installing grub
Grub_2 is very well doing on 'chainloading' by invoking scripts.
On updates, user is asked which file to load, default, custom... and even offering to compare such.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#3

Known bugs.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-linux/+bug/428318
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/479590

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#4

Sounds interesting too.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/414943

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keepitsimpleengr (keepitsimpleengineer) said : 		#5

I inadvertantly used the word "upgrade" when "update" was correct, pardon the error.

  Quote: Well, I'd assume this will overwrite customizations of course.

That's not a problem for me as I avoid customizations in menu.lst.

    Quote: Grub_2 is very well doing on 'chainloading' by invoking scripts.

grub2 has serious problems. For example, the consoles (from Alt-Ctrl-Fnn) fail to work

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/447765

there are problems using "set gfxpayload=nnnxnnnxn" as a workaround (which requires maunally editing a read-only automatically generated configuration file)

vesafb not available as a workaround because it has been blacklisted

and few options are configurable in StartupManager.

grub2 in karmic is beta, but probably should be alpha.