Is there a possibility of using cd shell to pass on a command to GRUB that would boot, for example, Kubuntu? I don't want a separate GRUB menu popping up, but I just want the command to be passed through GRUB so it will boot Kubuntu from my main menu. I don't know how to go about 1) booting the live CD from GRUB, and 2) passing a command through GRUB. I'm going to try a few things. A few people would like this, so let's use this thread to come up with all ideas of booting Linux from a multi-boot disk. Thanks

I think I figured it out. I'll post my findings on this soon. Sorry for the double post. I should have posted it in the first one.

I tried using isolinux for this, but I cannot load into Linux. I am using the following:

LABEL live
menu label ^Start or install Kubuntu
kernel /kubuntu/casper/vmlinuz
append file=/cdrom/kubuntu/preseed/kubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/kubuntu/casper/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=1048576 root=/dev/ram rw quiet splash --

This is in isolinux.cfg in the boot/isolinux/ folder. I got this information from isolinux in the kubuntu isolinux folder, and modified it to reflect the new file locations. Is there something wrong with this approach?

This post has been edited by fevoldj2: Nov 11 2006, 10:40 AM

Well, i understood what u have in mind..

First : For Adding a menu in boot.ini to boot ubuntu/kubuntu linux, here is the steps

1) Here is the contents of boot.ini

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\GRLDR="Ubuntu Linux 6.06"

2) Put the GRLDR from the GRUB in the root

3) Create a file with the name : menu.lst and fill it with the following contents

color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout 0
default 0

title Ubuntu 6.06
kernel (hd0,10)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-23-386 root=/dev/sda11 -ro quiet splash
initrd (hd0,10)/boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-23-386

Here make the necessary changes for kernel (hd0,10) for the correct partition number and also root=/dev/sda11

4) Reboot, u will get a menu "Ubuntu Linux 6.06" anext to Windows XP Professional, choose it, then see it
will boot into linux

5) Finished!!

will be posting how to add Norton Ghost, BartPE Live CD RAM Version...

No, this is for a multiboot installation DVD, so that I can have windows and linux on one installation disk, choosing which I want installed through a menu.

It seems like diskemu Kubuntu.iso could also do the trick here. I'm going to test another version of Kubuntu, though, just to be sure this isn't a problem with this version. I get the same problem.

This post has been edited by fevoldj2: Nov 11 2006, 10:48 AM

ya i got it, will be posting a easy method for it...

This post has been edited by Manju: Nov 11 2006, 10:52 AM

I understand what you are saying. I'm not trying to be rude, because I do appreciate your help. What you described is not what I am trying to accomplish.

ya i got it, u wanna have a single boot menu, so that u can choose either to install windows xp or kubuntu linux, ok will be posting a easy method for it... soon

Thanks ^_^

Well, the only solution I could find was to put everything from the CD into the root directory of my AIO DVD. Then I had to use bcdw boot /isolinux/isolinux.bin in order to start Linux. The problem with this, though, is that I can only have one distro on the CD through this method.

I'd be very interested in adding ubuntu to my disc if I could find a way to edit the setup to look in a folder instead of the root of the disc. Similar to editing txtsetup.sif for NT OS's.

I have a very modular disc and I hate having various folders for each component across the disc, one at the root is enough.

Knoppix was easy enough because of this reason and I managed to get that working using BCDW on the boot sector (I use CDShell by-the-way).

If you find an answer please post it here as I know there are people in this forum (besides me) that would be interested as well.

Knoppix should be the same as Ubuntu. They both use ISO linux. What are the steps to get Knoppix to work in its own folder?

It's already in it's own folder, KNOPPIX!

Just add the contents of the "boot" folder to your own and add a line in CDShell to BCDW your boot sector.



as you can see my boot sector is KNPXBOOT.DAT in the KNOPPIX folder.

I know this doesn't help much though if you end up with two isolinux folders in that location.

I'm presently looking into how isolinux actually works, something I've taken for granted up until now.

Apparently one way to have more than one Linux distro on one disc is to rewrite the isolinux.cfg file and have one isolinux folder on your disc to boot all of them.

I'm looking for a tutorial at the mo.

More than one Linux distro using ISOLINUX is cake.



Typically, ISOLINUX is found in /boot/isolinux. Put the kernel+ramdisk files for each distro in a sub-dir
under /boot, as in /boot/mepis for SimplyMEPIS, /boot/slax for Slax KillBill Ed, and /boot/server for
Slax Server Ed. The statements shown above work that way.

The files in the root of each distro go into the root of the ISO, exc for Slax Server+KillBill Eds, bec each of those distros have a cmd-line param (from=/) which permit their support files to be placed in their own sub-dirs. Distros based on Knoppix (Knoppix, DSL, et al) are problematic bec they each rely on a /KNOPPIX sub-dir which can't be relocated, otherwise ISOLINUX makes a multi-distro CD/DVD easy. BTW, I would point out that I also integrated BartPE and the CHNTPW P/2K password cracker gizmo into the same ISOLINUX menu with a nice splash screen.

HTH....

Thanks for your reply.

Do you have any ideas of how to get all the source files from ubuntu in one folder (instead of disc root) and successfully boot it (for live and install)?

This post has been edited by kof94: Nov 18 2006, 05:44 PM

Is this method compatible with cdshell with isolinux?

As far as I know, yes.

The commands just need to be adapted a bit!

I havn't got time right now to explain, I'll post a proper answer later.

I tried this with Kubuntu, and apparently it has a problem mounting the filesystem on the ram drive. It also has a preseed step that your distributions did not have.

I read somewhere in this forum about creating an .img file using the contents of the isolinux dir to boot with.

Problem is I didn't bookmark it and I can't bloody find it again .

The benifits of this are obvious but I'd still like to know how to mod the distro's so you don't have loads of folders/files at the root of the disc (a pet hate of mine).

http://www.sadyc.net/anyCDintoUBCD.html This looks promising.

[Edit] Nevermind... it requires putting the entire Linux disk in the root of the DVD

Putting all the files onto the root of the DVD works, but it's not ideal if you want more than one Linux distro. I wonder if you can burn the CD in such a way that a folder will act like root...

This post has been edited by fevoldj2: Nov 19 2006, 03:12 PM

Basically we need to know if there's a file like txtsetup.sif for linux, that tells the installer where the the source files are.

I have seen this question asked on the ubuntu forums but nobody replied to it.

I might register on it just to bump the topic... .