Triple boot problem: Fedora, Ubuntu, XP

adit_sen · 11-10-2007, 12:33 AM

I wanted to install Fedora 7, Ubuntu 7.04 and Windows XP Pro as a triple boot on my system. I firstly installed XP, after which I installed Ubuntu, followed by fedora. Now I can boot into both fedora and xp, but I've lost the option to boot into Ubuntu. How do i get it back? Right now all i get is the fedora grub menu which gives me an option to boot into fedora or windows.

Here are my partition tables (fdisk -l)

Code:

 Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80060424192 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9733 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         261     2096451    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2             262        7352    56958457+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3            7353        7365      104422+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4            7366        9733    19020960   8e  Linux LVM
/dev/sda5             262        4991    37993693+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6            4992        5003       96358+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7            5004        5127      995998+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8            5128        7352    17872281   83  Linux

Windows is on /dev/sda5 (boot.ini is on /dev/sda1), fedora on /dev/sda3, and ubuntu on /dev/sda6 (thats /boot).

Here's my current grub/menu.lst from fedora

Code:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,2)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora 7
    root (hd0,2)
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
    initrd /initrd-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7.img
title Windows XP Professional
    rootnoverify (hd0,0)
    chainloader +1

What do I have to add to menu.lst to get back Ubuntu?

Hitboxx · 11-10-2007, 12:51 AM

Its always wise to use/edit grub.conf on Fedora, though menu.lst will work, but still its a standard procedure.

Now its very easy,
1) Ubuntu is on /dev/sda6 as /boot so the kernel must be there. Just mount sda6 to some directory.

Code:

#sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sda6 some_folder

2) Now login as root temporarily

Code:

#su -

3) Open Nautilus (as its becomes easy to edit than using the console)

Code:

#nautilus

4) Browse to the folder where you have mounted sda6. Get into menu.lst using a text editor and copy-paste the kernel entry from there to your Fedora's grub.conf, save and reboot.

That's it. You get boot option for Ubuntu now, enjoy

PS: Remember, do all these in a single instance of Nautilus, i.e., copy-paste in the same Nautilus window which you have opened as root.