not booting with grub2

[davesurrey999]

Previously I have been able to boot into Linux Lite 1.0.8 using grub 2 on my test box that runs grub2 from a Linux Mint install.

The install of Lite 2.0 seemed to work ok but when I come to boot it I get "error file name expected...press any key to continue" although grub does appear to be finding it with its os--prober as it appears in its list of available distros. It just won't boot.

Is anyione multibooting 2.0 with grub2 that can help?
Does anyone know what parameters I need to do a manual entry into grub for lite 2.0

Before anyone asks, yes I have checked the MD5 and yes I've tried it using another type of CD

Also other distros work just fine.

I need to do an evaluation of Lite as I am considering using it in the charity where I volunteer helping senior citizens learn pcs and also converting their XP PCs to Linux.
Thanks

[gold_finger]

Not sure what might have gone wrong.  I'm doing exactly same thing as you here -- installed LL 2.0 (beta), but booting from Mint 16 grub.  During LL install, directed grub to LL root partition instead of MBR.  After install, booted Mint 16 and ran "sudo update-grub".  I'm assuming that's what you did also.  Maybe it just didn't complete installation correctly for some reason.  Can you try re-installing to see if that fixes problem?  (Might be the easiest and quickest solution.)

P.s.  I'll be switching to the final LL 2.0 version either today or tomorrow.  Seriously doubt difference between 2.0 beta and final 2.0 would be cause of that, but will report back if I too run into similar problem.

[davesurrey999]

Thanks for your reply.
To confirm I am using Linux Mint 17 (cinnamon) with grub2 and Linux Lite 2.0 (not the beta).
Yes I have done "sudo update-grub" several times (that's why the os-prober finds Linux Lite) but still won't boot.
Have re-installed using a diff CD bit same problem.
Strange.
Grateful if you could report back if its ok when you install 2.0 final.
Many thanks

[N4RPS]

Hello!

I've installed LL 2.0 final on a couple of machines, and GRUB seemed, and seems, to work fine.

If your boot loader has been totally hosed, boot-repair does a very good job of either fixing it and/or generating a support request for you to submit to Ubuntu, to help get you some assistance...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob

[spandey]

I am facing the same issue with Linux Mint 17. I tried to edit the Linux Lite entry in GRUB2 menu and found that there is no file-name after  the word   'linux'

That is why GRUB error says file name expected..Any ideas why GRUB2 in Mint is generating entries but without Linux file name..

[gold_finger]

Apologies for delay getting back to this.  Had other things come up and busy week.

Just installed LL2.0 (non-beta) an hour ago and kept Mint 16 in charge of booting like I had when LL 2.0 beta was installed.  Ran into same problem described by davesurrey999 and spandey.  So there apparently is something that changed between the beta version and final version that causes this.  So, just confirming that you people did not do something wrong when installing.

I'm still trying to work out a solution and will report back when I figure it out.

[davesurrey999]

Ho gold_finger,
Thanks for getting back and confirming what I have seen.
To be honest I was quite sure there was an issue here as I certainly don't consider myself a Linux expert but have done 100's of installs and have LPIC-1 and 2 so not a novice.
It's a happy coincidence you have just installed 2.0 final as today I broke out another box and did an install of lite 2.0 to the whole disk and let it take charge of booting and not surprisingly it worked. Am now using another distro PCLinuxOS KDE and about to do a dual install of lite 2.0 keeping PCLinixOS in charge of booting to see what happens.
Let's report back our findings.
Cheers
Dave

[davesurrey999]

Just realised that PCLOS uses legacy grub so reverting to plan B ...Lubuntu 14.04

[davesurrey999]

So I've just installed Lubuntu 14.04 and set it to take control of grub 2 booting and although it picks up and boots windows 7 and pclinuxos it does exactly the same as Linux Mint ie it doesn't boot LL 2.0 as it reports "error file name expected".

[gold_finger]

Okay, I don't know what the solution is but found where the problem is.  I made copies of the following files in Mint 16 (that is in control of booting) after installing LL 2.0 Final which did not boot:

/boot/grub/grub.conf
/etc/default/grub
/etc/grub.d/ (all files in this directory)

Then I re-installed LL 2.0 Beta and made copies of the exact same files in Mint 16 (which now successfully boots LL again).

I did file comparisons of the two /boot/grub/grub.conf files and found many differences.  The differences show up in the section where /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober is called and adds the entries for LL.  The two 30_os-prober file copies are identical, so what ever it is reading from the two versions of LL and entering into /boot/grub/grub.conf is different.

I've attached copies of both grub.conf files to this post.  Below is just an outline of the differences I found between the two.

Lines #200 & 201:
    Working LL 2.0 BETA -- grub.conf has this:
    linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=47878fc3-f171-4697-bbd8-fc706765b2bc ro quiet splash $vt_handoff
   initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic
   
   Non-working LL 2.0 Final -- grub.conf has only this:
   linux




Line #204 (BETA) vs. line #203 (Final)
    Working Beta (#204) reads:
    menuentry 'Ubuntu (on /dev/sda5)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic--47878fc3-f171-4697-bbd8-fc706765b2bc' {
   
    Non-working Final (#203) reads:
    menuentry 'Description (on /dev/sda5)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux---cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d' {




Line #213 (BETA) vs. line #212 (Final):  similar diff. to lines 200 & 201 above.




Line #216 (BETA) vs. line #214 (Final)
    Working Beta reads:
    menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-24-generic (on /dev/sda5)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic--47878fc3-f171-4697-bbd8-fc706765b2bc' {
   
    Non-working Final reads:
    menuentry '/boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic (on /dev/sda5)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-root=UUID=cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d^ro^quiet^splash^$vt_handoff--cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d' {




Line #225 & 226 (BETA) vs. line #223 (Final)
    Working Beta reads:
    linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=47878fc3-f171-4697-bbd8-fc706765b2bc ro quiet splash $vt_handoff
      initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic
      
   Non-working Final reads:
   linux root=UUID=cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d^ro^quiet^splash^$vt_handoff




Line #228 (BETA) vs. line #225 (Final)
    Working Beta reads:
    menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-24-generic (recovery mode) (on /dev/sda5)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic-root=UUID=47878fc3-f171-4697-bbd8-fc706765b2bc ro recovery nomodeset-47878fc3-f171-4697-bbd8-fc706765b2bc' {
   
    Non-working Final reads:
    menuentry 'Description (on /dev/sda5)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux---cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d' {




Lines #237 - 240 (BETA) vs. lines #234 - 269 (Final)
    Working Beta reads:
    linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=47878fc3-f171-4697-bbd8-fc706765b2bc ro recovery nomodeset
      initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic
   }
}

    Non-working Final reads:
    linux 
   }
   menuentry '/boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic (on /dev/sda5)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-root=UUID=cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d^ro^quiet^splash^$vt_handoff--cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d' {
      insmod part_msdos
      insmod ext2
      set root='hd0,msdos5'
      if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos5 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos5 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos5  cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d
      else
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d
      fi
      linux root=UUID=cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d^ro^quiet^splash^$vt_handoff
   }
   menuentry 'Description (on /dev/sda5)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux---cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d' {
      insmod part_msdos
      insmod ext2
      set root='hd0,msdos5'
      if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos5 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos5 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos5  cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d
      else
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d
      fi
      linux 
   }
   menuentry '/boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic (on /dev/sda5)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-root=UUID=cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d^ro^recovery^nomodeset--cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d' {
      insmod part_msdos
      insmod ext2
      set root='hd0,msdos5'
      if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos5 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos5 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos5  cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d
      else
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d
      fi
      linux root=UUID=cd8fe027-9341-47d4-ae8f-d9cafc421c1d^ro^recovery^nomodeset
   }
}

[attachment deleted by admin, more than 25 days old]

[Kirkx]

In case it helps, I boot my Linux Lite v2.0 from Grub4Dos w/o any problems. I guess this way you boot the kernel directly, bypassing the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg. Here is my menu.lst from Grub4Dos:

## Grub4Dos Boot Menu

color white/blue blue/yellow red/yellow red/yellow
# timeout 30
# default 0

# title Windows XP
# chainloader (hd0,0)/ntldr

title Linux Lite (core.img)
kernel (hd0,6)/boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img

title Linux Lite (vmlinuz)
root (hd0,6)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=b5c7940e-453b-4eed-8d87-bb992069026c ro  splash quiet $vt_handoff
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=b5c7940e-453b-4eed-8d87-bb992069026c ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic

title Reboot
reboot

title Halt
halt

Partition (hd0,6) in Grub4Dos translates to /dev/sda7 in LL.

I didn't want to have my original MBR overwritten by Grub2 so I installed it at the root partition of LL. When you look at my menu.lst you can see that I can boot to LL using either core.img or vmlinuz. I also got rid of the boot splash screen by removing the parameter "splash quiet $vt_handoff".

[davesurrey999]

Hi Kirk,
Thanks for the reply.
For the record as of today I've now tried this on 3 different boxes, with 2 burns from 2 downloads and with grub2 in the mbr of Lubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17 and OpenMandriva 2014-kde and so I am convinced the issue is with LL 2.0.
I have done a manual entry into grub2 's 40_custom file as follows:

menuentry "Linux KLite 2.0 on sda2" {
set root=(hd0,2)
linux  (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic  root=/dev/sda2
initrd  (hd0,2)/boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic
}
EOF

and it boots well. 

I hope one of the devs can sort this out one day.
Hopefully this thread will help others.
Dave

[gold_finger]

Just in case people here haven't seen, Valtam responded to this issue here:  https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/index.php?topic=480.msg2431#msg2431.

[davesurrey]

Thanks gold_finger. I tried and couldn't get it to work as I've reported over there.

[robert]

I know I'm still learning Linux and understand what you guys are talking about, but.
LL is aimed at Windoze people to tempt them to move over to Linux and so works great at dual booting with XP or 7.
So for the intended audience it works.  I for one am very pleased with it.