Some things which can stand improvement in grub-0.90

[Meinhard E. Mayer]

I have the following setup:
CPU:
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 8
model name      : Pentium III (Coppermine)
stepping        : 3
cpu MHz         : 839.927
cache size      : 256 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 2
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat 
pse36 mmx fxsr sse
bogomips        : 1677.72

PARTITIONS
major minor  #blocks  name

   8     0    4462500 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc
   8     1     120487 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
   8     2          1 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2
   8     3     489982 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part3
   8     4     522112 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part4
   8     5    1172744 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5
   8     6    1172744 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part6
   8     7     979964 scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part7
   8    16   17921835 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/disc
   8    17    1461883 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part1
   8    18          1 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part2
   8    19     498015 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part3
   8    21    2449912 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part5
   8    22    1413719 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part6
   8    23     634536 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part7
   8    24     682731 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part8
   8    25    1028128 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part9
   8    26    2562336 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part10
   8    27    2562336 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part11
   8    28    1542208 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part12
   8    29    1542208 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part13
   8    30    1542208 scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part14
   3     0    4210416 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc
   3     1     706828 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
   3     2          1 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2
   3     5    1534176 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5
   3     6     610438 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part6
   3     7      56196 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part7
   3     8    1301233 ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part8
Memory: 
Mem:  261218304 228462592 32755712        0  2465792 110125056
Swap: 509956096        0 509956096
MemTotal:       255096 kB
MemFree:         31988 kB
MemShared:           0 kB
Buffers:          2408 kB
Cached:         107544 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:          50340 kB
Inactive:        59612 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:       255096 kB
LowFree:         31988 kB
SwapTotal:      498004 kB
SwapFree:       498004 kB

Kernel:
Linux version 2.4.13 (address@hidden) (gcc version 2.96 20000731 (Red Hat Linux 
7.1 2.96-99)) #2 Wed Oct 24 17:25:39 PDT 2001

Redhat Linux 7.2
grub (GNU GRUB 0.90)

Observations:

If I set the bios to boot from scsi (I have my linux root system
on  /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part9 aka /dev/sdb9)
I can boot linux from the grub-diskette, but booting Windows2000
which resides on /dev/hda fails 
after I set 
rootnoverify (hd2,0)
chainloader +1
boot

Linux boots fine with 
kernel (hd1,8)/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.13

apparently cannot see and load ntldr from the ide-disk. 

If I set my BIOS to boot from the ide disk, where I have installed
grub on (hd0),  grub boots up fine, but since the hda1 partition
is FAT, the neme of grub.conf has been truncated to grub.con, and
in order to get the boot menu, I have to manually specify:
grub> configfile (hd0,0)/grub/grub.con

I presume I am not the only one with this kind of setup, so it
would make sense to replace the standard name grub.conf with
something like grub.cfg

Since grub does not find a grub.conf file, there is no way of
unattended rebooting after a power failure -- or is there? 

Hopefully the problem of booting from a scsi partition which is
not the "first disk" will also be addressed in a future release.
(Lilo has similar problems in booting W2k when the boot-partition
is on a scsi disk), so I am quite happy with grub, except for the
mentioned grub.conf problem. 

Best regards, 

 
-- 
Hardy
(Meinhard E. Mayer)
Professor Emeritus
Tel: (949) 759-3378 Fax: (734) 448-5140