GRUB 2 with Ubuntu 9.10

[Logicklz]

I don't know about you guys but Linux is one of the best adventures I ever had and one thing I love is to try all the new Linux distributions

I was browsing the web and found this web link with grub2 new features

http://www.workswithu.com/2009/07/29/ubuntu-910-preview-grub-2/

Here is my fav feature about the new grub

Boot ISO images

GRUB 2 can boot directly to ISO images stored on a local disk, meaning among other things that testing a Linux live CD is as simple as saving its image to hard disk and passing GRUB the commands to boot to it. No longer having to burn a CD or create a bootable USB drive in order to play with a new Linux distribution is a great improvement. This feature could also come in handy for rescuing broken systems using live CDs.

Now my cd-writer and USB flash drive can RIP..

 

[milomak]

I must implement this asap

 

[engelbma]

Great !!! GRUB has saved me on a number of occasions.
Can't wait for 9.10.

 

[MyWorld]

I have been using Grub2 now for quit some time, the reason being that you can theme your grubsplash much better with Grub2.

I did not even know it could boot straight into an ISO, but somehow I do not see the advantage of this for everyday use.
Sure it is nifty, but isn't it easier, safer and quicker to us a VM? No reboot and whatnot.

I'm struggling to see the real world advantages of booting straight into an ISO, you cannot install from it since you need the harddrive the ISO is on (for fdisk and formating, etc), that is if somehow the whole LiveCD is not copied to RAM without it being affected if the source ISO is removed by a format.

What then if installation failed, the ISO is gone and you will need to somehow get it again.

Hmmmm, great step forwards but... eish...

 

[ponder]

I'm struggling to see the real world advantages of booting straight into an ISO...

If your system is borked and grub still works it will allow you to boot a image which is much faster than waiting for a cd to spin up so you can do repairs.

I'm sure developers will like this feature to test iso images instead of burning a cd everytime. A VM is not always the same as hardware.

I'm sure there are other advantages that I cannot think of right now.

 

[MyWorld]

If your system is borked and grub still works it will allow you to boot a image which is much faster than waiting for a cd to spin up so you can do repairs.

This would be fine for minor maintenance like checking a file system, but if my thinking is sound you will not be able to repair the file system the ISO is located on, for the same reason I mentioned before.

Such basic testing can already be done with Grub, so still I'm not seeing a real advantage...

Yes, you can boot and test that new fancy ISO without burning it to a disk, and like I said it is quite neat, but other than this I really cannot see any other advantages.

Hopefully this is just the first step in true parallel computing.

 

[ponder]

This would be fine for minor maintenance like checking a file system, but if my thinking is sound you will not be able to repair the file system the ISO is located on, for the same reason I mentioned before.

Correct. Who in their right mind though keeps their /home(data) on the same partition as /(root).

 

[milomak]

a borked system could mean you have done updates that need to be reversed. as long as the drive is not physically harmed or you do not need to delete/reformat, then there is no real problem.

with my systems i find i am always to make changes that i have a suspicion will cause me troubles and sometimes do. so i need my system rescue cd (or another installed distro) to boot into and chroot into the borked one to fix.

on my desktop where i have multiple distros this solution will not be needed. but on my laptop where i just have Debian, it will probably be a godsend.