How will additional installation affect grub?

[nickdc]

I've already got WinXP and Ubuntu 11.10 happily dual booting, both on my main sytem drive: C / sda. I now want to do a further installation of Ubuntu Studio 10.04 (ie older release) onto a separate hard drive (E / sdd) which is formatted NTSF but has loads of unallocated space on it. I assume I can do this by choosing the manual partitioning option during the install process. But will the installer automatically find the existing grub on sda and simply add the new Ubuntu Studio boot option to it (which is what I want)? If not, how do I achieve this?

[drs305]

I believe the latest versions of Ubuntu still require Grub to be installed (a sore point with some 'power' users). Although there are a few ways to work around this (such as installing Grub to a partition instead of the MBR), the safest and probably best approach is to let Grub install itself.

If you have the opportunity to install it only to the MBR of the new installation's drive (sdd) do that. Make sure the BIOS still boots from your main drive and you may still have your original Grub controlling things.

Otherwise, after the new installation:
Select your older/original Ubuntu version at boot. Run the first command to put controll of the boot back to the original OS (assuming sda is the designation of your original Ubuntu installation). Run the second command to add the new OS to the original Grub's menu:

sudo grub-install /dev/sda
sudo update-grub

Watch for upgrades when running your secondary Ubuntu. Certain updates may revert control back to that version's Grub. If it happens, rerun the commands above.

Note: You can tell which Grub is controlling the boot by noting the first entry on the Grub menu. You might want to add a background image for one or both so you can tell more easily.

[darkod]

No, the installer by default installs its grub2, it doesn't care about other OSs including ubuntu.

If I remember correctly 10.04, what you need to do is: you do the install as normal until you reach the last step/screen. There should be Advanced button. Click it and you will have an option not to install a bootloader (to untick the box). Only after you have done that click the Install button to start the install.

On first boot you will not see Studio in the menu, your 11.10 is still not aware of it. Just boot it and run:
sudo update-grub

It will create option for Studio in the menu.

[drs305]

I think darkod is correct that 10.04 is far enough back that the Advanced tab still offered the option not to install Grub (2). Look for the Advanced option during the latter part of the installation - it's easy to overlook it.

[nickdc]

Thanks, guys, I'll give it a whirl.

[nickdc]

Uh! Can't get the installation to start! Am I missing something here?

First, the downloaded iso image I'm using for Ubuntu Studio 10.04 is called "alternate install dvd". It's the only one I can find and seems very official, but I don't understand what it's alternate to ... Does it need special treatment, because ...

Second, it doesn't boot. I've run a check and the data seems ok, but I've tried it in two different drives and neither brings any result. However, once Ubuntu has booted up normally from the hard drive, the install dvd shows up ok (not automatically; it has to be found in Computer), and clicking on it opens it and brings up a message saying it contains software packages and do I want to upgrade. So far I've always cancelled at this stage, in case it then starts to install over the current version on the current drive. Is this correct. The other possibility is that if I click yes i'll get what I'm after, a full install option. Please could I have some guidance on this?

PS I've just had a thought: though my bios is set to boot from cd as its second option, is it possible that being an old machine it can't boot from a dvd? If so, is there anything I can do about this?

[darkod]

Is the image ubuntustudio-10-04-alternate or ubuntu-10-04-alternate? If it says only ubuntu that's the desktop system, only the alternate install image.

Look here for Studio 10.04 images:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustud...10.04/release/

[nickdc]

No, it is the ubuntu studio one, from exactly the page you linked to. What should I do?

[darkod]

What do you mean the bios is set to boot from cd-rom as second option? It needs to be first so you boot from the cd not the hdd.

Another option is that you didn't burn the cd correctly. Did you make sure you burn it from image, not just copy files on it?

[nickdc]

I've just tested the install dvd in a laptop and it works fine, booting straight from the dvd into the installation screen, so clearly I've got a hardware or BIOS issue with my desktop machine. Any suggestions? In particular, can someone kindly tell me which file in which folder is the one that kicks everything off (I'm showing my ignorance of Linux here, but in Windows I'd be able to find the relevant setup.exe or whatever; is there an equivalent in Linux???), as maybe I could then run from that. And I'd also be grateful to an answer to one of my original questions: if I choose the option to "upgrade" when the "disk containing software packages" (ie the installation dvd) is detected, will I get an option to do a full install on a different drive or will it start straight away trying to 'upgrade' my current, newer, Ubuntu?