rootninja

GNU GRUB is easy to set up, it’s just got it’s own funky syntax that you don’t really see anywhere else.

GRUB stands for GRand Unified Bootloader

GNU GRUB is a multiboot boot loader derived from the original GRUB. It is the first software program that runs when a computer starts. It loads the kernel and … that’s it. It’s the kernel’s job to load the rest of the OS. GRUB was originally created by Erich Stefan Boleyn.

Quick, easy, & painless

Install grub. In gentoo i’ll just emerge it from the portage tree. You may have to download the source manually or perhaps use your package manager to install from a binary.

Build it and run it

# emerge -a grub && grub

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild    R   ] sys-boot/grub-0.97-r6
Would you like to merge these packages [Yes/No] y

You should eventually find yourself at the grub prompt grub>. The hd syntax starts numbering from zero. If your drive is the 2nd device and you want to install grub on the 8th partition, you would use (hd1,7)

grub> root (hd0,0)

Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd0)

Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.

Type quit to exit. You will need to customize the barebones menu.lst to boot whatever operating systems you want.