FAQ Answer # 4 is misleading

[Sergio Ruocco]

Hello,

It seems to me that the answer #4 of the FAQ:

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http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-faq.en.html#q4
4. How to create a GRUB boot floppy with the menu interface?

  1.  Create a filesystem in your floppy disk (e.g. mke2fs /dev/fd0).
  2. Mount the floppy on somewhere, say, /mnt.
  3. Copy the GRUB images to the directory /mnt/boot/grub. Only stage1, stage2 
and menu.lst are necessary. You may not copy *stage1_5.
  4. Unmount the floppy.
  5. Run the following commands (note that the executable grub may reside in a 
different directory in your system, for example, /usr/sbin):

/sbin/grub --batch --device-map=/dev/null <<EOF
device (fd0) /dev/fd0
root (fd0)
setup (fd0)
quit
EOF
-------------

is misleading and/or incomplete.

In fact, grub looks by default for "grub.conf", and not "menu.lst", which is 
the standard under RedHat (at least my Fedora 1), and in fact is a link to grub.conf.

Moreover, the instructions leave implicit the fact that two nested directories 
should be created in the floppy file system.

I suggest to rewrite/expand this answer as follows:

-------------
  1.  Create a filesystem in your floppy disk (e.g. mke2fs /dev/fd0).

  2. Mount the floppy on somewhere, say, /mnt/floppy.

  3. Create a directory for the GRUB images, say,
     mkdir /mnt/floppy/boot/, mkdir /mnt/floppy/boot/grub

  4. Copy the GRUB images and the configuration file to the directory 
/mnt/floppy/boot/grub.
     cp [stage1, stage2, grub.conf] /mnt/floppy/boot/grub/
     Only stage1, stage2 and menu.lst are necessary. You may not copy *stage1_5.

  4. Unmount the floppy.

  5. Run the following commands (note that the executable grub may reside in a 
different directory in your system, for example, /usr/sbin):

/sbin/grub --batch --device-map=/dev/null <<EOF
device (fd0) /dev/fd0
root (fd0)
setup (fd0)
quit
EOF

  6. The output will be somewhat as follows (a fat-formatted floppy was used 
here):


   GRUB  version 0.93  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
  lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
  completions of a device/filename.]
grub> device (fd0) /dev/fd0
grub> root (fd0)
Filesystem type is fat, using whole disk
grub> setup (fd0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/fat_stage1_5" exists... no
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (fd0) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/grub.conf 
"... succeeded
Done.
grub> quit
-------------

Please, include this in the manual ! 


It should go right after or replace the current Section 3.1 "Creating a GRUB boot 
floppy", which is not very helpful as the FAQ answer.


Thanks for good job,

        Sergio Ruocco


--
______________________________________________________________________
Sergio Ruocco                           mailto:address@hidden
ERTOS Researcher                        National ICT Australia Ltd.
Level 4, Building G17                   University of New South Wales
UNSW Sydney NSW 2052                    phone: +61-2-9385-7934
Australia                               fax:   +61-2-9385-7942