Remove SG2D devices from search (Super Grub2 Disk – Live Development)

Last week I learnt (adrian15 speaking) about other people doing live streams while programming. It sound as something stupid you doing a live streaming when you develop but as I saw all the streamings most of them where in non open source languages or non open source projects. So I told myself that I had to do it too.

The other reason is that it might help other people who are doubtful about contributing to Super Grub2 Disk to finally begin to do so. Because, it’s not as difficult as it might seem.

So last weekend I performed a public live devopment streaming which I announced in Super Grub2 Disk chat channel.

As you might see there are two things to be improved in the video:

  • Sound quality (I need something to remove my laptop fan noise at runtime)
  • Video quality. I think I will record with my second screen at 1024×768 instead of squeezing my bigger screen to 1024×768. This might improve video quality.

So I promise I’ll try to announce the live development streamings with more time, probably three or fours days in advance so that you can join by the chat.

So, here there is the video about how I managed to remove Super Grub2 Disk devices from search by default. You can find its associated commit here.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s2 Beta 1 released

Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Beta

This is an exciting release. For the first time we are not relying on Debian’s grub packages but on our own grub2 build system. Yes, just like the distributions do when they build their own packages.

This improvement let us to track grub git so that we can use its latest features. Sometimes you choose to rely on an stable grub release but sometimes some features are needed  as right now.

One of these features is being able of booting from EFI system from a hard disk or usb in EFI mode. (That feature was wrongly announced in the past releases of Super Grub2 Disk as being functional). And, what it’s better than that… The same disk also works for BIOS based boot and also for CDROM boot.

Let me repeat it slowly. With Super Grub2 Disk hybrid iso you will be able to boot from:

  • EFI mode. Cdrom or DVD media.
  • EFI mode. USB or hard disk media.
  • BIOS mode. Cdrom or DVD media.
  • BIOS mode. USB or hard disk media.

Another fix from upstream grub enables us to avoid showing Super Grub2 Disk device itself as a (wrongly detected) Mac OS X installation. This error arised on last beta and we discovered that grub itself did not work ok when testing two expressions if the first one was detecting if a file existed or not. You can check this grub commit if you are interested.

That same fix might make Super Grub2 Disk run faster because now our tests will work as expected. I haven’t tested Super Grub2 Disk speed myself so if you have feedback on it please report here on the comments.

Dedicated to forum.ubuntu-fr.org and malbo

I want to dedicate this release to the Communauté francophone d’utilisateurs d’Ubuntu forum people and specially to malbo who managed to make Super Grub2 Disk to boot from a USB thanks to the standalone version. Now the Super Grub2 Disk hybrid version should boot in either BIOS or EFI mode when burned to a cdrom and also when dd to a hard disk. No need to build your own usb version for that.

I know that around that community there are many great people that did find many ways of dealing with EFI specifics (Hopefully I can reuse some of these next year for Rescatux) but I chose malbo because he is great at writing howtos or step-by-step instructions so that other people can debug why their systems do not boot and hopefully they can finally boot into them.

Unfortunately Microsoft’s approved secure boot is not in my Super Grub2 Disk TODO list because of ethical reasons. That would even help even more, till then, make sure you disable secure boot when booting from Super Grub2 Disk in an EFI machine.

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. Use dd to put Super Grub2 Disk in your usb device if you want to make use of it.

 

Recommended download (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

 

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s1 Beta 1 Main menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s1 Beta 1 Main menu

 

EFI x86_64 standalone version:

Floppy, CD & USB in one downloads:

About other downloads

As we no longer rely on Debian grub packages some of the releases have been removed (till someone teachs me how to rebuild them). The downloads you will not be finding are: coreboot, i386-efi, ieee1275, standalone i386-efi and standalone ieee1275. Help is welcome on this subject and also feedback if someone was actually using them or not. Else I might remove them completely.

How to test

Try to boot your desired operating system with this version. If it does not boot try the 2.00s2 stable version. If you can boot with the stable version but not with this beta version please report it to the bug tracker.

This is a Super Grub2 Disk tutorial that it’s not based in this beta version but that can help you understand what you can do with Super Grub2 Disk.

Development miscelanea:

  • This release was built in a Debian jessie system but using upstream 2.02 grub version (commit 8e5bc2f4d3767485e729ed96ea943570d1cb1e45).
  • Please check the new DEVELOPMENT file if you plan to build Super Grub2 Disk on your own very often.

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Note: 2.02s2-beta1 means:

  • 2.02: Upstream Grub 2.02 version
  • s2 : Super Grub2 Disk scripts version (inside this Upstream Grub version)
  • beta1: Beta 1

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s1 Beta 1 released

Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Beta

Changelog

  • Based on Grub 2.02 (commit bac5d1a64ab4191058a8fd4c05f6b3b339e249e7 )
  • 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.

Recommended download (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

 

Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s1 Beta 1 Main menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.02s1 Beta 1 Main menu

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: standalone EFI x86_64, coreboot, i386-efi, i386-pc, ieee1275, x86_64-efi, standalone coreboot, standalone i386-efi, standalone ieee1275. Help is welcome on this subject.

How to test.

Try to boot your desired operating system with this version. If it does not boot try the 2.00s2 stable version. If you can boot with the stable version but not with this beta version please report it to the bug tracker.

This is a Super Grub2 Disk tutorial that it’s not based in this beta version but that can help you understand what you can do with Super Grub2 Disk.

Development miscelanea:

  • This release was built in a Debian jessie system but using upstream 2.02 grub version (commit bac5d1a64ab4191058a8fd4c05f6b3b339e249e7).
  • I want to thank Jordan Uggla to teach me about what were the Grub2 native disk drivers and what nativedisk command did actually. phcoder did try once to explain it but I wasn’t smart enough to understand it. Hopefully I can help with nativedisk help text inside Grub2.
  • This new “Enable all native disk drivers” option unloads the usually default biosdisk drivers which talks to the bios to access hard disks (Like did MS-DOS in the old days) and replaces it with native drivers (as a normal Operating System would do). It also manages to find somehow the old Super Grub2 Disk device and define the correct $prefix variable.
  • In my tests this new option: “Enable all native disk drivers” aborts Virtualbox. That means that we are also testing Grub2 or maybe Virtualbox. Please check my submitted bug.
  • We have renamed many menues so that their purpose is more clear.

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Note: 2.02s1-beta1 means:

  • 2.02: Upstream Grub 2.02 version
  • s1 : Super Grub2 Disk scripts version (inside this Upstream Grub version)
  • beta1: Beta 1

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 Tour Video

I have recorded another video of Super Grub2 Disk Tour. It is now based on 2.00s2 version. The video is much better than the latest one (which I have just removed) because my English is better and because I had an script with what I needed to say. More than this I speak slowly for non English speakers.

Anyways my English in this video is far from optimal if you are a native English. Nobody has offered himself to record it so… I can’t do any better ;).

Enjoy !!!

 

2014 August development update

News, Rescatux, Super Grub2 Disk

Rescatux development

Debian Live improvements

I had planned to do a lot of Rescatux development during August but I just worked with the Debian Live part and I was quite proud of it.

As you might know one of the upstream projects for Rescapp is Debian Live. If you happen to contribute back to Debian Live not only Rescatux wins but also all the Debian Live derivatives. Including, probably, Ubuntu live cds.

CPU detection at boot

You might know that Rescatux has an autodetect boot entry at its boot. You can find it in versions prior to Rescatux 0.32b1. Boot system in Rescatux has been always based on Grub2 so that Super Grub2 Disk could be easily integrated. More than this an isolinux version of the iso was included . As a consequence a findiso boot parametre was needed for that to work. I also added (adapted from grml if I remember it ok) findiso to Debian Live back in the time. You will see that I’ll mention it later.

In order to avoid problems with people not being able to put the ISO into an USB using standard tools since Rescatux 0.32b1 Rescatux no longers depends on Grub2 as a bootloader but it depends on Syslinux / Isolinux.

That meant that Rescatux 0.32b1 did not have a cpu autodetect option. The amd64 option was the default one and if it did not work you were supposed to choose the 486 option.

I recently learnt that Syslinux / Isolinux had cpu detection capabilities through a com32 file.

I have implemented that functionality for both syslinux and grub2 in Debian Live. That patch won’t have been possible without the findiso option.

You can see how the auto detect (and the new logo) looks like in this Rescatux screenshot.

Rescatux Autodetect Syslinux based
Rescatux cpu autodetect is now based on Syslinux

 

Loopback cfg support

The loopback cfg support is a very good idea. As Grub2 can loop mount ISOs it can read its files without having to extract to temporary files.

So you can write an specific Grub2 file named loopback.cfg that specifies how the kernel (or initrd) can find the ISO so that it can loop mount it and gather their needed files to boot into a Desktop (or whatever your Live system does).

This Debian Live improvement means that when new Debian Live (or Debian Live derivatives) will be released they will have a working loopback.cfg by default.

Another reason for using Super Grub2 Disk Choose Bootable ISOs option.

I join an screenshot on how the loopback cfg looks like when run from SG2D. The reason why you don’t see Rescatux instead of Debian Gnu/Linux – Live is because Debian Live does not let you to easily change that string. I am talking about that issue to Debian Live developers too.

 

Rescatux new loopback cfg entry as seen from Choose Bootable ISOs option from Super Grub2 Disk
Rescatux new loopback cfg entry as seen from Choose Bootable ISOs option from Super Grub2 Disk

Super Grub2 Disk development

Smx work addition failed

I tried to gather additional functionality from Smx’s supergrub2 repository but it was not possible. Too many conflicts. I’ll wait till he rewrites the commits so that I can just fast-forward them.

So if you want to be able to use your own keyboard layout at grub shell or being able to chainload a partition manually you will have to wait.

Grub 2.02 not so stable

Grub 2.02 has not been released as stable yet. It’s still beta.

The first problem happened when SG2D made Virtualbox to hang. Apparently it only happened when I tried to list files in an special partition called: (cd,apple4)/ .

It seems it only happens when you build EFI and you use Virtualbox. This is why it was so hard to detect. The bug has been already been solved.

However the second problem is related on how Grub 2.02 tries to detect new devices. Grub 2.00 had an specific way of doing that by loading specific modules.

Now it seems you have to use the new nativedisk command and it will detect them for you and even rename the new devices so that they replace the existing ones.

Actually, I have not understood how it is supposed to work but it might make more difficult the Everything + option. Probably I will have to remove it.

So the error happens when running nativedisk. Grub2 seems to do some weird ahci calls and Virtualbox aborts the VM without saying anything in the logs.

So, even if Grub 2.02 gets into Debian as an stable package I’ll take a double look at it because of nativedisk and maybe other problems that might arise.

Super Grub(2) Disk: More than 3,5 million downloads since 2005

News, Super Grub Disk, Super Grub2 Disk

Super Grub2 Disk has recently achieved 500,000 downloads on cenatic forge.

I am going to share with you some numbers from old Super Grub Disk, new Super Grub2 Disk and older forges.

  • Thanks to a friend who hosted the web server around 2006, 2007 I setup a tiki-wiki page and counted the downloads on adrian15.raulete.net. : 53,166 downloads. This was Super Grub Disk probably when I still did not use variables but pre-made constants in many many grub files.
  • Spanish Junta de Extremadura setup a forge specially aimed at Linex project.  Thank you forjamari people once again! I joined them around 2008. No GRUB2 was widely available so this is still Super Grub Disk : 1,603,685 downloads.
  • Then there was a time when Super Grub Disk was self hosted and with four more mirrors. I remember Benjamin and a French guy. Sorry I cannot thank you all properly.
  • Finally I found Berlios where  there are both Super Grub Disk and Super Grub2 Disk downloads: 1,504,207 .

So if we sum up downloads for both Super Grub Disk and Super Grub2 Disk we get: 504,739 + 53,166 + 1,603,685 + 1,504,207 =

 

3,665,797 downloads

It’s difficult to compute a most exact figure. Downloads from when Super Grub Disk had mirrors need to be added. Torrent downloads also. Third party file download site dowloads, et caetera. I let you, the current Super Grub(2) Disk and Rescatux user to imagine it.

Hopefully some years into the future we can see a similar figure for Rescatux 😉 .

You might be interested in reading the Super Grub Disk is outdated post and also the last Super Grub2 Disk release: Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 where I thank the current Super Grub2 Disk collaborators and developers whom I almost forgot to thank in this article.

Download Super Grub2 Disk

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 articles

News, Super Grub2 Disk

Introduction

This is a summary of the articles around the Internet that have announced Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 release, what I think about them, what they have added, what they have missed and the overall reactions.

English

Linuxtracker

This was the first site where you could download all the Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 binaries and source code thanks to the Super Grub2 Disk torrent which I uploaded myself. As the torrent users not only download the files but also upload them I release it two days before the downloads are public in the forge.

Softpedia

I must admit that I like the previous Softpedia articles about Super Grub2 Disk from when they were only betas or release candidates:

  • Super Grub2 Disk 2.00 Is Based on GRUB 2 : This one was not very good because the piece of news was Super Grub2 Disk beging based on GRUB 2.00 not GRUB 2. That’s not the same thing because Super Grub2 Disk was already based on GRUB 2 when it was Super Grub2 Disk 1.98s1 because GRUB 1.98 is also GRUB 2 according to upstream GRUB syntax. However it was a welcomed piece of news because many people discovered that an equivalent for Super Grub Disk but aimed at Grub2 existed and its name was: Super Grub2 Disk.
  • Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 Beta 1 Can Help You Boot in Any System Without a Boot Loader: This piece of news includes for the first time the Everything option and a reference to new boot technology based on conditional AFD which once in a year you will discover for sure.
  • Boot in Any System That Lost Its Bootloader with Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 Beta 2: If you are a heay desktop user, …, you might have been confronted with the loss of original bootloader. … Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 Beta 2… acts almost like a Live CD GRUB system, which can be very useful sometimes. It makes a bad assumption about the Super Grub2 Disk size. It was not a couple of MB but 11 MB.

Even the current Super Grub2 Disk Editor Review with five stars out of a total of five stars on their download page is quite overwhelming:

When booting the live medium, all you’ll see is a GRUB bootloader with a plethora of options.

(…)

we can declare it the best tool for booting into broken GRUB bootloaders.

Well, the fact here is that the other tool available for this task is a raw Grub2 Disk, so as an unique I think it’s both the best and the worst tool :).

And finally the current piece of news (I told them myself there was an update):

Get in Any System Without a Boot Loader with Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 : Although it persists in the couple of MB size error and it renames BSD systems as BDS ones the article is brilliant. Not only it reuses paragraphs from former articles and explains the development of the tool but it also quotes about the release itself in order to make it more complete.

Freecode

This is another site where I announced myself the availability of Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2. They latest almost three days till they finally aproved my update. They might have been busy probably. They did not do too much editing on my original text.

Update: Freecode is stalling and probably closing the next months.

Reddit r/linux

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 released has currently 12 positive votes and 4 negative votes. Nothing to comment here.

Linux G

This is an original piece of news ! Thank you! .: Repair Your System’s GRUB Via The Super GRUB2 Disk 2.00S2 ISO . Although it is not attaching the current snapshot for 2.00s2 is explaining the new Super Grub2 Disk features quite well.

Spanish

Barrapunto

This is another article which I wrote myself and that translated into Spanish most of the original English article. You can find it in: Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 disponible. When writing this article it has been for three days in the main page queue for some Barrapunto editor to polish the piece of news and promote it to frontpage. Hopefully they will promote it soon.

Random download page

As I don’t want to promote any of these rubbish pages I won’t put a link or name to him. Instead of searching for an Spanish article (barrapunto) the page is google-translating the original article and result is awful.

MuyLinux

I told them myself about the new release. Nueva versión estable de Super Grub2 Disk 2 was not made online but only after a week after the actual release. That what’s my fault because I did not take the time to told them about it one or two weeks before the final release. That’s the reason why the piece of news is not as complete as it could not be.

I also had to send them an updated screenshot of the VM snapshot because my cropped snapshot (only showed the menu and not black background) did not fit into their design. Hopefully all the design problems can be solved so easily.

What I most like about this piece of news is that I could discuss with people in the piece of news comments themselves. Not always you have time to get so much feedback.

In the comments you can see that I think about removing Super Grub2 Disk from inside Rescatux (like I did in Rescatux 0.32b1), about using LxQT or not in Rescatux, and some other topics.  And well, maybe rethinking how I rewrite Rescatux changelogs.

Taringa

Super Grub2 Disk 2, nueva version estable from Taringa comes as a copy and paste from Muylinux piece of news.  As per a request from a user they add some instructions on how to put Super Grub2 Disk into a USB. These instructions wipe the USB, that’s ok, but they don’t make it explicit! They should have better linked to official instructions on how to do that.

Another funny thing about this piece of news is a user comment where it says the tool has saved some people from commiting suicide. Finally there’s the user that says LoL at my keys explanation, well, if you think it enough you will see that it’s not easy enough to infer which keys you have to use.

Meneame

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 disponible from Meneame was very special because I usually visit that page. One of the users infered that I was able to workaround Secure Boot to boot into Windows 8.1. I had to tell them that I was not going to support Secure Boot at all.

German

I always like the German articles because they seem to be quite serious when doing their articles.

Prolinux

This site usually clones the Freecode piece of news. This time they also wrote an article: Alles-Booter Super Grub 2 Disk in neuer Version 2.00s2 which kind of means The one which boots everything Super Grub2 Disk.

 that can really identify and boot all operating systems installed on a hard drive with a new boot option

Super Grub2 Disk boots everything is quite a good slogan and I hadn’t thought of it because there is always an Operating System that doesn’t boot for one reason or another. The article is just a rewritten Freecode announcement with some references to the different supported hardware platforms and images.

There’s a good point about an user comment: They are only x86 platforms. What about SPARC, Power*, parisc, etc? Well, I don’t have such a hardware to build these release and none of the current Super Grub2 Disk developers or collaborators have asked or offered themselves for such builds.

So Michael you are welcome to build it by yourself out of the source code. We will help you.

 Linux Magazin

This is an article that appeared as Super Grub 2 Disk 2.00s2 bootet fast alles in Linux Magazin (a popular Linux Magazine in Germany) and that also appeared as Boots Everything in Linux-community.de.

The article says that the software is localised into German among other languages but German translation is not updated to cover all the Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 options. I couldn’t wait for a German (and other languages) for discovering beta versions being incomplete and updating them.

The best thing about this article is the description next to the Super Grub2 Disk main menu image:

Almost too good to be true: Super Grub Disk 2 2.00s2 promises to find all install operating systems.

There’s a little confusion here. There’s an option called Everything which searches for all the Operating Systems that Super Grub2 Disk can search of. Not everyone of them. One operating system which it’s not going to be booted is Solaris or OpenSolaris because neither upstream Grub2 nor Debian’s Grub2 (the one we currently use as a base) don’t have ZFS support because of license issues. The other one might be ReactOS although they once told me that if you could boot Windows systems you could also boot ReactOS ones. I should probably check what’s the current state.

IT rig

The IT rig piece of news entitled Super Grub2 Disk – Bootmanager Grub mit Live CD einfach reparieren which means Simply repair Grub boot loader with Super Grub2 Disk live CD it’s quite personal because the author points about him reporting two years ago the beta version. Then the tour video is mentioned about having a poor sound quality. That is true and that’s why I added the English subtitles before the stable release.

I see that he repeats twice the misunderstanding that Super Grub2 Disk repairs boot loaders. That’s not true it only lets you boot into them.

Update June 24, 2014: After reading this post IT rig webmaster has fixed the misunderstanding that current version can repair boot loaders. Well, not the article title actually, but I think it’s better not mess with article titles. Thank you!

Russian

nnm-club.me

This is one of these pages that have a lot of advertisements related to downloads and that are usually torrent pages. I usually hate these pages but I have to link to: Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 [Multi] because not only the use a custom Super Grub2 Disk logo but they also have some screenshots that they have made themselves. I know it because they are black and white and because the Super Grub2 Disk version matches the current stable version. They seem to have a windows partition in their virtual hard disk according to the snapshots.

Another curious thing is that the features are taken from the wiki page not from the release or main Super Grub2 Disk page.  I would have prefered them to use the non-wiki features explanations.

opennet.ru

Выпуск Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 is the best piece of news. Why? Because of the users of course. Someone did not like the default colours. It’s funny because in the old Super Grub Disk you had more than six colour choices and now you only have this default colour or black and white.

As I said someone did  not like the default colours and another user pointed him to Colour ON/OFF option. I guess he would have like the Matrix colour from old Super Grub Disk version.

Another user is even more radical. Why don’t just use the terminal thanks to ‘c’ button? Well, that’s the whole reason for Super Grub2 Disk… being a GUI or TUI if you want.

Finally someone said something about u-boot which seems to a bootloader usually used in SD cards for booting embedded devices.

Let’s do an easy joke :

In Soviet Russia Operating System boots you.

Italian

lffl linux freedom

The piece of news RILASCIATO SUPER GRUB2 DISK 2.00S2 also announces Italian translation support although it is not complete. It also recommends Unetbootin which I’m not sure how well it works with Super Grub2 Disk. In our site we recommend Yumi although the perfect method is using dd.

I personally like lffl because in former Rescatux or Super Grub2 Disk piece of news there were many comments from users.

Czech

root.cz

Super Grub2 Disk: pomocník s rozbitým bootováním which means Super Grub2 Disk: Help with a broken boot is not a very long article. What makes me laugh is the mention about the video: The basic idea of what you can do with Super Grub2 Disk is in the attached video. Well, that’s not actually true. In the video I never try to boot any of the Operating Systems that I show. And that’s what Super Grub2 Disk mainly does. Booting into an OS then meant to have to reboot and made the video longer. I plan to re-record a tour video anyways because I think it’s too complex. Not in the short them though.

Portuguese

Pplware

Super Grub2 Disk 2 – Quando o sistema não arranca… is quite an original article. It shows more screenshots than other piece of news. However they say that UI being translated into several languages is something new. I’m not 100% sure but I would say that former 1.98s1 version was already translated to several languages.

SempreUpdate

Como reparar o Grub via Super GRUB2 Disk 2.00S2 ISO, inclusive dual boot com Windows! makes the error of saying that Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 fixes the grub while it is not true. You can boot into your system by the means of it though.

Conclusions

  • Softpedia people, although not always 100% accurate write some very nice articles about Super Grub2 Disk
  • Most people tend to copy and paste the original piece of news from major media. If they try to write their own piece of news not only their SEO will be better but they will make me happier.
  • I tend to check piece of news comments (specially in Spanish) to gather feedback from them.
  • Most people have not yet learnt that Super Grub2 Disk no longer fixes grub (Although enabling your to boot into your system fixes your problem of not accessing your OS 🙂 ). Do not expect that software is always going to have the same features. Software sometimes removes some features.
  • I probably have to write a Press page with some of these conclusions.

 

I am personally waiting for an old fashioned article where Super Grub2 Disk is test in a Lab environment (E.g. Virtualbox) with several Operating systems and dual boot scenarios. These scenarios can be used to evaluate Super Grub2 Disk itself. You know a paper Linux Magazine article. I have learnt that an Spanish paper Linux Magazine was going to be closed.

Not sure I will ever read such an article. Nostalgia.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 released

News, Super Grub2 Disk

I am proud to announce Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 stable.

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 1.98s1 version and released on October 2010 (more than three years ago). So as you might guess this release has many new features and supports more Operating Systems to boot.

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.

 

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu

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
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Spanish Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Spanish Main Menu
  • Everything option to detect most Operating Systems
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 Everything menu making use of grub.cfg extract entries option functionality
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 – Everything menu making use of grub.cfg extract entries option functionality
  • Everything plus option 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
      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))
    • 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

Basically apart from 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 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 screenshot
      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.
  • FreeBSD
    • FreeBSD (single)
    • FreeBSD (verbose)
    • FreeBSD (no ACPI)
    • FreeBSD (safe mode)
    • FreeBSD (Default boot loader)
  • EFI files
  • Mac OS X/Darwin 32bit or 64bit
Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 rc4 Mac OS X entries
Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 rc4 Mac OS X entries (Image credit to: Smx)

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, x86_64-efi) (ISO)
  • EFI x86_64 standalone version (EFI)
  • Additional Floppy, CD and USB in one download (ISO)
    • coreboot
    • i386-efi
    • i386-pc
    • ieee1275
    • x86_64-efi
  • Additional standalone versions
    • coreboot (IMG)
    • i386-efi (EFI)
    • ieee1275 (IMG)

Supported Media

  • Compact Disk – Read Only Memory (CD-ROM)
  • Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices
  • Floppy (1.98s1 version only)

Downloads

Recommended download (Floppy, CD & USB in one) (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu

 

 

 

 

 

EFI x86_64 standalone version:

Floppy, CD & USB in one downloads:

Standalone versions:

Source code:

Everything (All binary releases and source code):

Hashes

In order to check the former downloads you can either download:

or you can check their contents right here.

MD5SUMS

8063a27f804c72c334ae168e6080d6d6  super_grub2_disk_coreboot_2.00s2.iso
4e7a64ceed96a072b6ccef3ea05aff00  super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.00s2.iso
3642c487cda17d8a43aca699fd0a6f20  super_grub2_disk_i386_efi_2.00s2.iso
e8d9d4efe4f29a90883f5c2ed6b45620  super_grub2_disk_i386_pc_2.00s2.iso
86a029507e5e6d24d0381515d065f634  super_grub2_disk_ieee1275_2.00s2.iso
dde7dc3ce33b98af6d9721a0d9d3943d  super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_coreboot_2.00s2.img
79acccf2a79ffe35a5cc538e3e61203c  super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_efi_2.00s2.EFI
b73f02be50f04cc9a97c739946890fec  super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_ieee1275_2.00s2.img
b2a1fb232e0b30e4a8eeecdf33e1dbe9  super_grub2_disk_standalone_x86_64_efi_2.00s2.EFI
ff122ad1f0e2fa269a3e5238bcd617cc  super_grub2_disk_x86_64_efi_2.00s2.iso
7edd784638d4b46a08fa26318208c7a0  super_grub2_disk_2.00s2_source_code.tar.gz

SHA1SUMS

10d89d06ae327432b847fc2e8f95eaedb5466c63  super_grub2_disk_coreboot_2.00s2.iso
8093d72934e4c7764a30790505151fabedccb337  super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.00s2.iso
a61f21a4829dd347d8688783c4d8e8b5c41aabe1  super_grub2_disk_i386_efi_2.00s2.iso
fab1116b71ebafeb18aa82a5113f3b17b951a922  super_grub2_disk_i386_pc_2.00s2.iso
ed8ecfb82e9543a71d0ddc22691a954d65216376  super_grub2_disk_ieee1275_2.00s2.iso
cadcd107de4ea15de34ed9ea6aa754cb3ee9df5e  super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_coreboot_2.00s2.img
8849b47da51006b8ed6afc86bf78729506ab0db2  super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_efi_2.00s2.EFI
e1fd93f4959b8a1e35ef9b44f3362ec87ba68b40  super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_ieee1275_2.00s2.img
8a371d464974e275723c427e17834d9b24fad69b  super_grub2_disk_standalone_x86_64_efi_2.00s2.EFI
f973460399de09f7b96dffed89257e0de738e501  super_grub2_disk_x86_64_efi_2.00s2.iso
2f3c2e93ee5e6ea3d1fd6d33682db8f3c0286850  super_grub2_disk_2.00s2_source_code.tar.gz

SHA256SUMS

c96dadd25928f64fc51627737c36546fe439279c4fb7e05d73794b4d77a39413  super_grub2_disk_coreboot_2.00s2.iso
99f729d083fb4aaa2dff357d100f460a7120313c93cfbfa619ef83e52061b7d9  super_grub2_disk_hybrid_2.00s2.iso
3cbdd672f27b441c7296ca360ca52373a6c90b2c1b34f1ad939ee86450e7acba  super_grub2_disk_i386_efi_2.00s2.iso
c2a60b8cdd332c45218e3eadee88debbbfe4a6597a47ef5bb98a1221363dddff  super_grub2_disk_i386_pc_2.00s2.iso
23f3259cf9156eac11c6f1d26ffdbf587ab988ae3f0496f57e333e94e9367cb9  super_grub2_disk_ieee1275_2.00s2.iso
725987d2ad3abbd8ce7e25768d2b751428525cb718a8cde2a4fd29f5149eb62d  super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_coreboot_2.00s2.img
88d56819eaad29a4b618d42d00f9625e9cd2d3cb6baf3991cbf56fb0b7478047  super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_efi_2.00s2.EFI
ad9bcb42f3971e99fbbe739ea9ca69dfd43106da5e63bcbe7843d83909273758  super_grub2_disk_standalone_i386_ieee1275_2.00s2.img
333c520a6206e050fd151b577a2e17a921e3412909ef9ed8776cc7584172dd7d  super_grub2_disk_standalone_x86_64_efi_2.00s2.EFI
52ba8c5d3c576188c800a5522c785c758f46fb67e4fa3b1e28cc94c77320c0af  super_grub2_disk_x86_64_efi_2.00s2.iso
4fd9326f7c224e7f06fca038f305ae9658d2c19bfe8f728b1026acc8338a6495  super_grub2_disk_2.00s2_source_code.tar.gz

Changelog (since former 1.98s1 stable release)

  • New Everything option that lets you find all your Operating Systems in your computer.
  • New Everything + option . It loads: LVM, RAID, PATA, USB and mounts encrypted volumes and then tries to find everything
  • UI was completely redesigned
    • Move all “Enable …” options to a submenu
    • Add “Return to main menu” option to submenus
    • Now every option from ‘Enable extra GRUB2 functionality…’ comes back to main menu after a 5 seconds delay (just in case there are any bugs)
    • Show floppy and cdrom status after toggling their value. Wait 5 seconds before return to main menu
    • Floppy and CDROM search toggle options go into their own submenu: Enable extra search functionality
    • Boot manually submenu let’s you boot into different operating systems manually
    • Added a submenu_title function to make all submenus to have the same title design
    • Sleep after menu entries which print to the screen. This way you can read what these options say.
    • Use gfxterm by default but allow the user to prevent the use of gfxterm by holding shift during boot. This allows the display of non-ASCII characters
    • Show Super Grub2 Disk and its version at main page
    • Added colours and a colour toggle option
  • Now Super Grub2 Disk is built for different Target + Platform combinations. Currently is based on binary Debian packages from testing.
    • (Hybrid) x86_64+efi and i386+pc
    • i386 – pc
    • x86_64 – efi
    • i386 – efi
    • x86_64-efi
    • i386-efi
    • i386-coreboot
    • i386-ieee1275
  • Additional Operating Systems detected
    • Add option to detect GRUB legacy menu.lst files
    • Add new option for mounting encrypted volumes (LUKS and geli)
    • Added options to force floppy and / or cdrom search globally. The reason is that now floppy and cdrom search are ignored by default.
    • Loopback detection now also detects: /bootisos, /boot/booisos, /BOOTISOS and /BOOTISOS directories so that FAT file name compatibility is assured
    • Added support for chainloading EFI files.
    • Added x86_64-efi support so that EFI files are detected and can be booted
    • Added default boot loader entries for FreeBSD at OS detection script
    • Added support for Gentoo kernels (genkernel) to OS automatic detection option
    • Added extra boot parametres for OS X kernels
    • Added new option ‘CFG – Extract entries option. This makes easier to workaround grub configuration files with zero seconds timeouts.
    • Added Fedora’s path that include /boot/grub2 instead of /boot/grub on cfg detection
  • Added Exit menu so that you can halt or reboot your machine.
  • Added a dummy grub.cfg so that it loads main.cfg. That makes easier to reuse Super Grub2 Disk in multi OS devices.
  • New translation system based on gettext and po files
  • New translations
    • English
    • Spanish
    • Added French translation. Thank you goes to Daniel_KM.
    • Added Italian translation. Credits to Davide Depau
    • de,fr,it and ms translations were regenerated to reflect new translation strings. They need to be checked by translators
  • Development improvements
    • Most Super Grub2 Disk options were rewritten as libraries to make development easier and have a consistent UI.
    • Add new vmtest script to ease testing of new code. Vmtest is a bash script which will generate an SG2D iso, configure it to take input from and output to serial, then test it using kvm with kvm’s -nographic option.
    • Added new AFD boot technology.
    • SG2D scripts were rewritten from LUA language to new grub scripting language.
  • Miscelanea fixes
    • FIXED – [ Bug #18907 ] isodirs=$1 in scan_isos
    • FreeBSD boot wasn’t working ok. Fixed.
    • Fix gfxterm trigger. Now translation work as expected. Special characters are shown ok
    • Fix OSX Boot

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:

  • bfree (Niall Wash): For his work in rethinking how Super Grub2 Disk grub script might be rewritten although we never used that code. For adding code for EFI chainloader, helping on building and testing Super Grub2 Disk EFI releases.
  • Jordan_U (Jordan Uggla) (jordan.uggla AT gmail DOT com): For his work in rewriting Lua Super Grub2 Disk into new Grub2 scripting. Also for his work in translation system based on gettext and po. And also I want to thank him for all this work in Super Grub2 Disk in many many ways.
  • nox (Juergen Lock) (nox AT freebsd DOT org): For his work in fixing *BSD boot entries and helping adding new *BSD boot entries and testing.
  • Smx (Stefano): For his Mac OS X / Darwin boot fixes and testing. He has also worked in redesigning some of the menues and probably his work will be included in next Super Grub2 Disk versions. He has also worked in a keyboard selection menu on his own too. That will be also included in next versions.

The person who writes this article is adrian15 and is proud of being responsible among other things for the rewriting of options as if they were libraries. And also for the User Interface (UI) complete redesign.

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

Stable Super Grub2 Disk being very old

The last four years I have been focused on bTactic, the enterprise where I work and also in Rescatux. On february or march of this year (2014) I decided to release an stable Rescatux release. But this stable Rescatux release did not make sense without an stable Super Grub2 Disk base.

Another fact was that the newest stable Super Grub2 Disk was very old. More than this Jordan Uggla, which was very active two years ago seemed not very active lately.

So… there was an actual need for releasing stable Super Grub2 Disk.

Amazing Super Grub2 Disk development

One thing that I have liked about this recent Super Grub2 Disk development apart from upstream Grub2 improvements is the many people that have contributed to it.

Usually I was developing Super Grub2 Disk alone with the great help of Jordan Uggla which deals with upstream Grub2 and testing (he did the vmtest script) much better than I.

But now a few people have come around helping in various ways. Sometimes it was about testing EFI (bfree), sometimes it was about fixing FreeBSD (nox) which I don’t use myself so I cannot test it. And finally there was Smx which focused on Mac OS X / Darwin boot entries and testing but that promises a lot because in his own supergrub2 repo he has added some new features: beautify disk / partition menu and keyboard layout menu.

So to all of you, even if you are already mentioned in Hall of fame: Thank you!

New features to come

I still check old Super Grub Disk for new features. One I would like to implement is the hard disk live swap although it’s only useful for old computers. But I won’t probably implement it.

The other features are based on Smx work:

  • Boot individual partitions
  • keyboard layout menu (so that you can write a french, spanish, or whatever keyboard layout in grub shell).

Another apparent great feature is using Grub 2.02 capabilities for releasing a floppy image that fits into a floppy (not like the current ones that are floppy compatible but as you know there aren’t 12 MB size floppies).

I have even thought about adding a bunch of Linux kernels (and initrd) into Super Grub2 Disk so that you even boot into your system even when you don’t have a kernel, but I’m not sure about this move.

It would be interesting also to apply into Distrowatch because now Super Grub2 Disk would have not only a Grub kernel but also a Linux kernel… but you know, having a Linux kernel and just using it to boot another distribution I don’t think it applies as a distribution to be listed on Distrowatch :).

What I don’t plan to support at all is secure boot.

Rescatux development

As I have said the stable Super Grub2 Disk release was only a mere excuse for releasing an stable Rescatux release. Now I’m thinking about not making stable 0.31 based on Razor-qt and trying to use LXQT instead. So to release an 0.32.

Not sure what I’m going to do. I think it’s going to depend on third party razor-qt ppa status.

Anyways I’m quite busy at work so you won’t probably see neither a Super Grub2 Disk nor a Rescatux release in the next months.

(adrian15 speaking)

Getting help on using Super Grub2 Disk

More information about Super Grub2 Disk

Howtos are now simplified

News, Rescatux, Super Grub2 Disk

Many of you have complained about the howtos being too complex.

Too many links to open in order to find useful information.

Too many links that were not links because some of the pages were meant to be in progress.

So…

Thanks to a plugin that now let’s me include any page inside another one I have managed to rewrite the howtos.

I am still including pages but somehow  the howtos are much more simple. The maximum number of links to click in order to find useful information is two.

Well, here there is a link to the howtos: Super Grub Disk site  Wizards

If you still think that there is room for improvement please complain (on the specific howto page)!

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 Release Candidate 5 released

Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Beta

Please spread the word.

We need people to hard test this release so that we can release as an stable one !!! Hopefully in one month time.

Note: Previous release was 2.01rc3, that’s right. We have changed versioning back to previous method. 2.00s2rc4 means:

  • 2.00: Upstream Grub 2.00 version
  • s2 : Super Grub2 Disk scripts version (inside this Upstream Grub version)
  • rc4: Release Candidate 4

sorry for the confusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTR7Pkrd-1g

This is a release candidate release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker.

Recommended download (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 rc4 Mac OS X entries
Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 rc4 Mac OS X entries (Image credit to: Smx)
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu

EFI x86_64 standalone version:

Floppy, CD & USB in one downloads:

Standalone versions:

Changelog

  • Fix OS X Boot thanks to Smx.
  • Add extra boot parametres for OS X kernels. Thanks to Smx which inspired the code from his own repo.
  • Quote menuentries or functions parametres to avoid problems with variables with spaces on them.

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Development miscelanea:

  • This release was built in a Debian testing system using 2.00-22 grub version.