Problem booting Debian after installing Ubuntu 9.10

[Dimple Patel]

Hello,

I have a dual-boot system with Ubuntu 9.10 and Debian 5.01.  I did a fresh installation of Ubuntu 9.10. After that though Debian 5.0.1 installation is shown in the boot menu, am unable to boot into Debian.

I get a message saying "error: You need to load the kernel first". Can anyone help solve this problem?  Or do i need to do a fresh install of Debian again?  And if I do, will there be any problem booting into Ubuntu 9.10 after that?

Regards,
Dimple.

Regards,
Dimple Patel, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Library & Information Science,
Osmania University, Hyderabad. (http://sites.google.com/site/dimplerp)
Contribute to LDL: Librarians' Digital Library (https://drtc.isibang.ac.in)
DLIS, OU (http://sites.google.com/site/lisosmania)
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A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed. ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1999

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[Andrei Popescu-3]

On Fri,06.Nov.09, 14:04:02, Dimple Patel wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have a dual-boot system with Ubuntu 9.10 and Debian 5.01.  I did a
> fresh installation of Ubuntu 9.10. After that though Debian
> 5.0.1 installation is shown in the boot menu, am unable to boot into
> Debian.
>
> I get a message saying "error: You need to load the kernel first". Can
> anyone help solve this problem?  Or do i need to do a fresh install of
> Debian again?  And if I do, will there be any problem booting into
> Ubuntu 9.10 after that?

There is no need to reinstall.

First you need to choose which OS should manage your "main" boot loader.  
Since Ubuntu is already doing it, it might be easier to keep it that
way, but it will require some changes on the Ubuntu side as well.

Assuming you let Ubuntu manage the boot loader, you still have to poke
at its configuration. Please show the relevant boot loader configs both
from Debian and Ubuntu. For Debian it will be the file
/boot/grub/menu.lst and a quick google search shows Ubuntu is using
grub2, so it will be /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

Regards,
Andrei
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[Chris Jones-44]

On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 03:34:02AM EST, Dimple Patel wrote:
> Hello,

> I have a dual-boot system with Ubuntu 9.10 and Debian 5.01.  I did a
> fresh installation of Ubuntu 9.10. After that though Debian 5.0.1
> installation is shown in the boot menu, am unable to boot into Debian.
>
> I get a message saying "error: You need to load the kernel first". Can
> anyone help solve this problem?  Or do i need to do a fresh install of
> Debian again? 

Probably not.

My guess is that this is caused by Ubuntu 9.10 shipping grub2 and the
change in hd/sd numbering.

You can confirm this by checking the version of grub above the menu. If
it's the grub2 that ships with Karmic Koala you should see:

  GNU GRUB version 1.97

One difference is that grub2 counts partitions from one, while legacy
grub counts from zero - ie. if your root partition is /dev/hda5, grub
has it as (hd0,4) while grub2 has the more sensible (hd0,5).

Assuming you know which partition is your debian's root, you could
verify this outlandish speculation of mine by booting to the grub menu,
moving the cursor to the debian entry, hitting 'e', and checking the
partition specified by the 'set root=' statement.

If it's pointing to the wrong partition, change it to the correct one,
hit Ctrl-x and debian should take off.

If I'm right about this, and to make the change permanent, you'll have
to boot into ubuntu and fiddle the stuff in /etc/grub.d/ to reflect the
change and then run update-grub to recreate /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

CJ


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[Tom H-4]

Dimple Patel wrote:

> I have a dual-boot system with Ubuntu 9.10 and Debian 5.01.
> I did a fresh installation of Ubuntu 9.10. After that though
> Debian 5.0.1 installation is shown in the boot menu, am
> unable to boot into Debian.

> I get a message saying "error: You need to load the kernel
> first". Can anyone help solve this problem? Or do i need to
> do a fresh install of Debian again?  And if I do, will there be
> any problem booting into Ubuntu 9.10 after that?

Your Debian /boot/grub/grub.cfg stanza should be:

If Debian's /boot is not a separate partition from /:

menuentry "Debian 5.01..." {
        insmod ext2
        set root=[hd(x,y) of /]
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set [UUID of /]
        linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30-2-686 root=[/dev/sdZ of /] ro
        initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.30-2-686
}

If Debian's /boot is a separate partition from /:
(note that there isn't any "/boot" in the last two lines)

menuentry "Debian 5.01..." {
        insmod ext2
        set root=[hd(x,y) of /boot]
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set [UUID of /boot]
        linux /vmlinuz-2.6.30-2-686 root=[/dev/sdZ of /] ro
        initrd /initrd.img-2.6.30-2-686
}

(Assuming that you are not using dmraid, mdraid, or lvm.)


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