versatility of grub2 (Re: Alternatives to grub and lilo? was grub2 menu problems)

[Chris Bannister]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 05:28:01PM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> to boot FreeBSD without a chainload ... in the end I chainloaded
> FreeBSD.

Hi Ralf, 

I'm thinking of giving NetBSD a go -- have you tried it?

Also, just to show the versatility of grub2

Between '---- BEGIN ---' and '--- END ----' below, shows a setup I
saw (on a NetBSD ML, I think) which allows you to boot the
netbsd-INSTALL_FLOPPY. 

---- BEGIN ---
root at tal:~# ls -al /boot/
total 14232
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root     4096 Mar 29 01:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root     4096 Oct  4  2013 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   134580 Jun 10  2013 config-3.2.0-4-686-pae
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root    12288 Feb 18 01:47 grub
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 10020135 Mar 29 01:13 initrd.img-3.2.0-4-686-pae
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root     4096 Sep 14  2011 netbsd
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  1664571 Jun 10  2013 System.map-3.2.0-4-686-pae
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  2693664 Jun 10  2013 vmlinuz-3.2.0-4-686-pae
root at tal:~# ls -al /boot/netbsd/
total 9444
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Sep 14  2011 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root    4096 Mar 29 01:13 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9645551 Sep 15  2011 netbsd-INSTALL_FLOPPY

root at tal:~# less /etc/grub.d/40_custom
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply
# type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to
# change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry "NetBSD Installer" {
set root=(hd0,msdos5)
knetbsd /boot/netbsd/netbsd-INSTALL_FLOPPY
}
--- END ----

-- 
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people
who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the 
oppressing." --- Malcolm X