Restoring Grub With A LiveCD

I enjoy installing different distributions that I usually find first on Distrowatch. This is the premiere Linux site for finding what's the latest on your favorite distro. I like to install the Debian derivatives like Ubuntu, Mint, Mepis, AntiX and now the most recent I have downloaded, elive. I have also cut my Linux teeth on Damn Small Linux, Zenwalk, Slax, Back Track and a few others. But the common denominator is I start looking and keep current on the Distrowatch site. This site is a great resource for the Linux enthusiast.

It was here I found the terrific article on Restoring Grub written by Jesse Smith in the Questions and Answers section. I felt it was a well written and easy to understand article that covers an important piece of information. No one wants to see the fatal message No Operating System found or Grub errors 17, 22 or 25. (These are the three I've seen in my short Linux experience.) Here is the article in its entirety re-posted with permission.

Restoring GRUB

Can't-boot-any-more asks: Distro hopping wiped out my GRUB. How can I reconstruct it?

DistroWatch answers: Sometimes when making changes to a hard drive, such as installing a new operating system, the disk's master boot record (MBR) will get wiped or corrupted. When that happens, GRUB will no longer function. This has the unfortunate side effect of preventing the user from being able to boot their operating system and, in those cases, it's important to be able to get the system up and running again, preferably without re-installing the operating system(s) from scratch.

The easiest way to get GRUB back on-line is with a live CD. It doesn't really matter which live CD, so long as it comes with a copy of GRUB. Place the live CD into the computer and boot from it. We're then going to venture into command-line territory. The next thing to do is run the "grub" command as root or, if you are running a live CD that uses sudo, run "sudo grub". This will start GRUB and provide us with a prompt.

     grub>

We'll then find out where the GRUB files are located:

     grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

The find command will return a disk location for us. Probably "(hd0,0)" or "(hd0,1)". We now know where the GRUB files are stored. Next, we'll tell GRUB to use this location in the future. In the following step, type "root", followed by the location we were given above. In my case:

     grub> root (hd0,1)

GRUB now knows where its files are located and we need to re-setup GRUB in the master boot record. To do this, we type:

     grub> setup (hd0)

The above step should work for most people, who have GRUB installed in the MBR. For folks who have installed GRUB onto a partition, the "setup" command can be modified to include the partition number. The catch is, you need to know where you originally installed GRUB. In these cases, remember that GRUB starts counting partitions from zero, not one. So, for example, if GRUB was installed on the third partition of the first hard drive, the "setup" command will look like this:

     grub> setup (hd0,2)

When we get back to the prompt again, we can quit GRUB:

     grub> quit

And then reboot the computer. Remove the live CD from the drive and we should be back to normal.

Debian vs Windows XP USB Support

Here is a prime example of how Debian Lenny out shines Windows XP in one small area. (Note there are probably more) I have a wireless Logitech laser mouse. There is a small USB dongle for the receiver. The mouse has been giving double clicks when single clicks are supposed to have been sent. This is very annoying so I often remove the dongle and use the touch pad. Here is where I notice the difference, when I plug the dongle back in Windows will not recognize it unless it is in the same USB port. Debian on the other-hand will recognize it and make it available immediately. Debian is much better at seeing the hardware no matter which USB port it gets plugged into. If this had been Vista, good luck getting it to work on a different port other than where installed the first time. Chalk one up to Linux.

Install Bash-Completion

In some distros like Ubuntu this useful tool will be pre-installed. I read a tutorial on How To Forge for installing Bash-Completion in Debian. I found in my Debian install Bash-Completion was already installed. I for one hate typing commands and I use my history often. This reduces my mistakes. So when I learned about this little Bash add-on, I was all for it. To use it is simple. Just start a command and press tab once to complete the command and twice for more options. I'm sure there's plenty more so check the man pages for Bash-Completion.

Installing Packages In Debian With Synaptic

I have gotten very comfortable installing packages from the command line using apt-get, aptitude and dpkg. In fact I installed Synaptic using aptitude on the command line. So if I can do this why use Synaptic? The problem I have is what to install. Aptitude will install packages with ease this is true. Synaptic will also install packages with ease and I can find the packages I want by either searching or browsing the categories. This is extremely helpful since I really have no idea what packages are available or what they are named. And I also get the benefit of a brief description.

Click to enlarge

If you know what you are installing and are comfortable on the command line then by all means use it. It is very simple and you will see what is going on. But if you are like me and just don't know what is available, then Synaptic is definitely the way to go. Either way installing any of the available packages in Debian is a breeze. And for Debian that means lots of choices.

Customizing Debian

One of Debian's features I really like is that everything isn't installed by default. I can customize my installation without having to remove tons of things I don't want. Since I am still dual booting to Windows and will be sharing space on the hard drive with Microsoft's file system NTFS, I will need a way to access those files. Most distros are assuming that we will be accessing and mounting NTFS drives and the truth is quite a few of us will, so they install the driver. But Debian by default doesn't install the needed driver ntfs-3g. So here are he simple steps to install the driver I found on a Google search of 'mount ntfs drives in debian': (if following the directions in the link you will notice #6 for me is different, I had to modify the mount command for my system)

1. Open a termnal session as root
2. apt-get install libfuse2
3. apt-get install ntfs-3g
4. Identify the ntfs partition using command: fdisk -l | grep NTFS
   
5. mkdir /mnt/windows  (you can call this something different)
6. mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows -o defaults,umask=0

Now you will have access to your Windows NTFS partition. If you have more than one just repeat substituting the appropriate partition references. When you are done be sure to un-mount the drive with the umount command (not a typo).

This can also be set at boot time by editing the fstab file in a text editor. Caution!! Messing up this file will render the system to a non-bootable state. Only change what is needed by adding this line to the file: /dev/hda1  /mnt/windows  ntfs-3g    defaults      0 0
Of course you will want to identity of the partition as found from the command step 4 gives you. This will have to be done as root of course and the file is in /etc. Follow these steps as root:

1. cp -v /etc/fstab /etc/fstabold  (this copies the original)
2. gedit /etc/fstab  (or your favorite editor)
3. Add the line:  /dev/hda1  /mnt/windows  ntfs-3g    defaults      0 0
4. Close the editor and re-boot. The partition will be ready for access each time you boot now.

For someone like me that dual boots, it is important to be able to access files in all partitions. From Windows I use the driver Ext2 IFS in Windows to access Linux partitions. I plan on writing about this in my Working With Windows blog so watch for it.

Shrinking Windows Partition

When I started this blog my Windows partition was 100GB's. Now I only give it just a tick over 27GB"s. Why you ask? To install Linux. tonight I finished with my install of Debian Lenny complete with wireless. It did take me the better part of two evenings and a lot o command line work but I did learn some things along the way. I plan on sticking with Debian as my main distro. Debian has a lot to offer and I can grow into it for a long time. And let's face it most of the more popular distros are based on Debian anyway. Ubuntu and all of its derivatives, Mepis, AntiX and a host of others are all derived from Debian. That's all for now I still have my favorite game to install along with a few other things.

My Favorite Time Waster

We can't work all the time so I like to play Shisen. It is an easy to learn tile game in the same fashion as Mahjong with some slight differences. The object is to clear the board of the tiles in as little time as possible. Easy yes? Not always since the tiles must not be more than three straight lines apart and after staring at the board for a little while all the tiles seem to blend together. But I find it very challenging to try and complete the task quickly. My personal best is 4:18. This version is XShisen found in the Debian repositories. There are different variations out there and I have played a few. For me this one is the most difficult and challenging making it the funnest to play. Give it a try and tell us what your favorite time waster happens to be.

Update Firefox 3.5 Install To Linux

I was right about one thing and that is someone would publish what we need to get Firefox running in some Linux distro. Lifehacker comes to the rescue and pointed me to a blog, Kabatology, I would have probably never found. I will have to explore this site more fully as it looks to be rich in content. I am using Firefox 3.5 right now from the download I made the other day. I tried then to run Firefox using the ~/firefox/firefox command, but it failed each time in Mepis. In AntiX after navigating to the /home/firefox directory, I just double-clicked on the shell script file firefox and I now had Firefox running. Kabatology mentions the same command but also gave alternatives to starting Firefox in Ubuntu. One of which was double-clicking the firefox script file. Their tip was for Ubuntu and since Ubuntu is Debian based, as is Mepis and AntiX, I knew it would work for me too. I didn't have to run the wget command since I had previously downloaded Firefox. So many thanks to the Lifehacker team for finding the tip and thanks to Kabatology for sharing their knowledge.