[plug] Debian stable

[Craig Ringer]

> Grub still gives a choice of Windows 98 or Red Hat 7.3.   If you choose
> Windows it proceeds without any problem, but choosing Red Hat causes kernel
> panic, obviously  To fire up Debian I have to boot from a floppy disk
> (Debian boot disk).
> 
> Does anyone know how to edit Grub so that it looks for Debian and not Red
> Hat?   If not, any other suggestions would also be welcome.

Latest debian is woody (3.0).

I suspect that LILO failed to install on your MBR when you ran the 
debian installer. Why? who knows, it normally works fine. As a result 
your GRUB boot sector (from Red Hat) wasn't overwritten. If you hadn't 
had Red Hat installed already you would've been booted directly into 
windows w/o any boot menu at all.

You have two options - install LILO on your MBR, or re-install GRUB for 
Debian. Personally I think Debian works better with GRUB (packaged 
kernels are easier to install etc) but it isn't installed or used by 
default.

apt-get install grub

then read the README.Debian in /usr/share/doc/grub

but in summary:

grub-install /dev/hda  ( assuming hda is the BIOS's default boot disk )
update-grub
vi /boot/grub/menu.lst (the file is largely self-documenting)
update-grub

then reboot. You can change kernel parameters, even boot from alternate 
devices etc from the grub menu.

If you want to use LILO (the debian default), it should've been set up 
by Debain already, so try just running

lilo

and see what happens. If it fails, vi /etc/lilo.conf and experiment. 
lilo.conf is largely self documenting but man lilo.conf and man lilo are 
still very useful.




-- 
Craig Ringer
GPG Key Fingerprint: AF1C ABFE 7E64 E9C8 FC27  C16E D3CE CDC0 0E93 380D
	-- if it ain't broke, add features 'till it is. (or:)
	while (! broken) { features ++ ; broken = isBroken(features) }