Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s7 stable is here.
Super GRUB2 Disk is a live cd that helps you to boot into most any Operating System (OS) even if you cannot boot into it by normal means.
A new stable release
The former Super Grub2 Disk stable release was 2.02s6 version and released on January 2017 (1 month ago) . New features or changes since previous stable version are:
- Updated grub 2.02 build to tag: 2.02~rc1 . This is the release candidate for final stable 2.02 upstream Grub release. Please use this build to give them (upstream Grub) feedback on this version. It’s advised to ask here before reporting to them so that we discard the bug being a Super Grub2 Disk specific one.
We are going to see which are the complete Super Grub2 Disk features with a demo video, where you can download it, the thank you – hall of fame and some thoughts about the Super Grub2 Disk development.
Please do not forget to read our howtos so that you can have step by step guides (how to make a cdrom or an usb, how to boot from it, etc) on how to use Super Grub2 Disk and, if needed, Rescatux.
Tour
Here there is a little video tour in order to discover most of Super Grub2 Disk options. The rest of the options you will have to discover them by yourself.
Features
Most of the features here will let you boot into your Operating Systems. The rest of the options will improve the Super Grub2 Disk operating systems autodetecting (enable RAID, LVM, etc.) or will deal with minor aspects of the user interface (Colours, language, etc.).
- Change the language UI
- Translated into several languages
- Spanish / Español
- German / Deutsch
- French / Français
- Italian / Italiano
- Malay / Bahasa Melayu
- Russian
- Detect and show boot methods option to detect most Operating Systems
- Enable all native disk drivers *experimental* to detect most Operating Systems also in special devices or filesystems
- Boot manually
- Operating Systems
- grub.cfg – Extract entries
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 grub.cfg Extract entries option - grub.cfg – (GRUB2 configuration files)
- menu.lst – (GRUB legacy configuration files)
- core.img – (GRUB2 installation (even if mbr is overwritten))
- Disks and Partitions (Chainload)
- Bootable ISOs (in /boot-isos or /boot/boot-isos
- Extra GRUB2 functionality
- Enable GRUB2’s LVM support
- Enable GRUB2’s RAID support
- Enable GRUB2’s PATA support (to work around BIOS bugs/limitation)
- Mount encrypted volumes (LUKS and geli)
- Enable serial terminal
- Extra Search functionality
- Search in floppy ON/OFF
- Search in CDROM ON/OFF
- List Devices / Partitions
- Color ON /OFF
- Exit
- Halt the computer
- Reboot the computer
Supported Operating Systems
Excluding too custom kernels from university students Super Grub2 Disk can autodetect and boot most every Operating System. Some examples are written here so that Google bots can see it and also to make more confident the final user who searchs his own special (according to him) Operating System.
- Windows
- Windows 10
- Windows Vista/7/8/8.1
- Windows NT/2000/XP
- Windows 98/ME
- MS-DOS
- FreeDOS
- GNU/Linux
- Direct Kernel with autodetected initrd
Super Grub2 Disk – Detect any Operating System – Linux kernels detected - vmlinuz-*
- linux-*
- kernel-genkernel-*
- Debian / Ubuntu / Mint
- Mageia
- Fedora / CentOS / Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
- openSUSE / SuSE Linux Enterpsise Server (SLES)
- Arch
- Any many, many, more.
- Direct Kernel with autodetected initrd
- FreeBSD
- FreeBSD (single)
- FreeBSD (verbose)
- FreeBSD (no ACPI)
- FreeBSD (safe mode)
- FreeBSD (Default boot loader)
- EFI files
- Mac OS X/Darwin 32bit or 64bit
Support for different hardware platforms
Before this release we only had the hybrid version aimed at regular pcs. Now with the upcoming new EFI based machines you have the EFI standalone versions among others. What we don’t support is booting when secure boot is enabled.
- Most any PC thanks to hybrid version (i386, x86_64, i386-efi, x86_64-efi) (ISO)
- EFI x86_64 standalone version (EFI)
- EFI i386 standalone version (EFI)
- Additional Floppy, CD and USB in one download (ISO)
- i386-pc
- i386-efi
- x86_64-efi
Known bugs
- Non English translations are not completed
- Enable all native disk drivers *experimental* crashes Virtualbox randomly
Supported Media
- Compact Disk – Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) / DVD
- Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices
- Floppy (1.98s1 version only)
Downloads
Recommended download (Floppy, CD & USB in one) (Valid for i386, x86_64, i386-efi and x86_64-efi):
EFI x86_64 standalone version:
EFI i386 standalone version:
CD & USB in one downloads:
- Super Grub2 Disk (Floppy, CD & USB in one) 2.02s7 [i386-pc] (ISO)[Mirror #1]
- Super Grub2 Disk (Floppy, CD & USB in one) 2.02s7 [x86_64-efi] (ISO)[Mirror #1]
- Super Grub2 Disk (Floppy, CD & USB in one) 2.02s7 [i386-efi] (ISO)[Mirror #1]
About other downloads. As this is the first time I develop Super Grub2 Disk out of source code (well, probably not the first time, but the first time in ages) I have not been able to build these other downloads: coreboot, i386-efi, i386-pc, ieee1275, x86_64-efi, standalone coreboot, standalone i386-efi, standalone ieee1275. bfree has helped on this matter and with his help we might have those builds in next releases. If you want such builds drop a mail in the mailing list so that we aware of that need.
Source code:
Everything (All binary releases and source code):
Hashes
In order to check the former downloads you can either check the download directory page for this release
or you can check checksums right here:
MD5SUMS
232097ea540cde61d9caf72ac0910bf6 super_grub2_disk_2.02s7_source_code.tar.gz f7963b543da22b83287d7ca3e9b99576 super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.02s7.iso 15c2bf2ab0e56b1b730ffd702afc2983 super_grub2_disk_i386_efi_2.02s7.iso 1f91cb552d0e7f66e0e1ea8375071cfc super_grub2_disk_i386_pc_2.02s7.iso 5abeb72308b19c509c509341e7c1f9f2 super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_efi_2.02s7.EFI f9b416f63063bd5c9a472e95799e749b super_grub2_disk_standalone_x86_64_efi_2.02s7.EFI 619af11e95d10a7bfa03b07c6f1003ce super_grub2_disk_x86_64_efi_2.02s7.iso
SHA1SUMS
cfe1fc2d9e9ce2cfc5e23047cc63f745c5d1a23e super_grub2_disk_2.02s7_source_code.tar.gz 64da45d1df8455726bdcb81d85b5543f41ee8a76 super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.02s7.iso 830392a0fd9efe934cb9b2bfa4e26a53a04e842e super_grub2_disk_i386_efi_2.02s7.iso ecd2d58e47da70ab4694e4ba9afb4d9214cb9c5c super_grub2_disk_i386_pc_2.02s7.iso 3b0b21e634a7ce3c459bfad992106d722b4b46b8 super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_efi_2.02s7.EFI ac7328f1bc7cc87e59679aa35fb55a655b5ca5b4 super_grub2_disk_standalone_x86_64_efi_2.02s7.EFI 8e2b7160390de34478a755fc17fbd5a3b8c64099 super_grub2_disk_x86_64_efi_2.02s7.iso
SHA256SUMS
7528bf6fb3470e6282bc574f28f4062b2308fbc21b039508d15cba407ddedd88 super_grub2_disk_2.02s7_source_code.tar.gz 6b871fc4df2708cddced3d702671d16855a8f9e800d6c34c53106a89973faf83 super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.02s7.iso 82ffa6fd4c0dbe1561f15e732480a1b7f4beab4da27a0f15c657cacf0e20cc8c super_grub2_disk_i386_efi_2.02s7.iso 19eb36408275a6a8945a28b5b32b4999e250d2e9a0244b19f2d96de7edaefa5e super_grub2_disk_i386_pc_2.02s7.iso 42d9774f58f896a98351b9ac793021a7b06d98d2e53b49adbc284986c6f9a9cb super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_efi_2.02s7.EFI 05176f79e61c28456b713225043eb69b98bddf26287d8e7e153c6b19d829faf0 super_grub2_disk_standalone_x86_64_efi_2.02s7.EFI 03153f2a8d3f912cfcc893ad5b940384cb7a44abcc91f7395eeccbf86b94154d super_grub2_disk_x86_64_efi_2.02s7.iso
Changelog (since former 2.00s2 stable release)
Changes since 2.02s6 version:
- Updated grub 2.02 build to tag: 2.02~rc1
Changes since 2.02s5 version:
- Added Russian language
- Improved Arch Linux initramfs detection
- Added i386-efi build support
- Added i386-efi to the hybrid iso
- Grub itself is translated when a language is selected
- Added loopback.cfg file (non officially supported)
- (Devel) sgrub.pot updated to latest strings
- (Devel) Added grub-build-004-make-check so that we ensure the build works
- (Devel) Make sure linguas.sh is built when running ‘grub-build-002-clean-and-update’
- (Devel) Updated upstream Super Grub2 Disk repo on documentation
- (Devel) Move core supergrub menu under menus/sgd
- (Devel) Use sg2d_directory as the base super grub2 disk directory variable
- (Devel) New supergrub-sourcecode script that creates current git branch source code tar.gz
- (Devel) New supergrub-all-zip-file script: Makes sure a zip file of everything is built.
- (Devel) supergrub-meta-mkrescue: Build everything into releases directory in order to make source code more clean.
- (Devel) New supergrub-official-release script: Build main files, source code and everything zip file from a single script in order to ease official Super Grub
2 Disk releases.
Changes since 2.02s4 version:
- Stop trying to chainload devices under UEFI and improve the help people get in the case of a platform mismatch
- (Devel) Properly support source based built grub-mkfont binary.
- New options were added to chainload directly either /ntldr or /bootmgr thanks to ntldr command. They only work in BIOS mode.
Changes since 2.02s3 version:
- Using upstream grub-2.02-beta3 tag as the new base for Super Grub2 Disk’s grub.
- Major improvement in Windows OS detection (based on BCD) Windows Vista, 7, …
- Major improvement in Windows OS detection (based on ntldr) Windows XP, 2000, …
Changes since 2.02s2 beta 1 version:
- (Devel) grub-mkstandalone was deleted because we no longer use it
- Updated (and added) Copyright notices for 2015
- New option: ‘Disks and Partitions (Chainload)’ adapted from Smx work
- Many files were rewritten so that they only loop between devices that actually need to be searched into.
This enhacement will make Super Grub2 Disk faster. - Remove Super Grub2 Disk own devices from search by default. Added an option to be able to enable/disable the Super Grub2 Disk own devices search.
2.02s2 beta 1 changelog:
- Updated grub 2.02 build to commit: 8e5bc2f4d3767485e729ed96ea943570d1cb1e45
- Updated documentation for building Super Grub2 Disk
- Improvement on upstream grub (d29259b134257458a98c1ddc05d2a36c677ded37 – test: do not stop after first file test or closing bracket) will probably make Super Grub2 Disk run faster.
- Added new grub build scripts so that Super Grub2 Disk uses its own built versions of grub and not the default system / distro / chroot one.
- Ensure that Mac OS X entries are detected ok thanks to Users dir. This is because Grub2 needs to emulate Mac OS X kernel so that it’s detected as a proper boot device on Apple computers.
- Thanks to upstream grub improvement now Super Grub2 Disk supports booting in EFI mode when booted from a USB device / hard disk. Actually SG2D was announced previously to boot from EFI from a USB device while it only booted from a cdrom.
2.02s1 beta 1 changelog:
- Added new option: “Enable all native disk drivers” so that you can try to load: SATA, PATA and USB hard disks (and their partitions) as native disk drives. This is experimental.
- Removed no longer needed options: “Enable USB” and “Enable PATA”.
- “Search floppy” and “Search cdrom” options were moved into “Extra GRUB2 functionality menu”. At the same time “Extra Search functionality” menu was removed.
- Added new straight-forward option: “Enable GRUB2’s RAID and LVM support”.
- “List devices/partitions” was renamed to “Print devices/partitions”.
- “Everything” option was renamed to “Detect and show boot methods”.
- “Everything +” option was removed to avoid confusions.
- Other minor improvements in the source code.
- Updated translation files. Now most translations are pending.
- Updated INSTALL instructions.
Finally you can check all the detailed changes at our GIT commits.
If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.
Thank you – Hall of fame
I want to thank in alphabetical order:
- The upstream Grub crew. I’m subscribed to both help-grub and grub-devel and I admire the work you do there.
The person who writes this article is adrian15 .
And I cannot forget about thanking bTactic, the enterprise where I work at and that hosts our site.
Some thoughts about Super Grub2 Disk development
Super Grub2 Disk development ideas
There are two main improvements than can be made to Super Grub2 Disk in the next releases:
- Fix md5sum files associated to iso files so that they don’t have to full path.
Old idea: I don’t know when but I plan to readapt some scripts from os-prober. That will let us detect more operating systems. Not sure when though. I mean, it’s not something that worries me because it does not affect too many final users. But, well, it’s something new that I hadn’t thought about.
Again, please send us feedback on what you think it’s missing on Super Grub2 Disk.
Rescatux development
I want to focus on Rescatux development on the next months so that we have an stable release before the end of 2017. Now I need to finish adding UEFI features, fix the scripts that generate Rescatux source code (difficult) and write much documentation.
(adrian15 speaking)
