Re: Problem booting Debian after installing Ubuntu 9.10

[Tom H <tomh0665@gmail.com>]

Dimple Patel wrote:

> I have a dual-boot system with Ubuntu 9.10 and Debian 5.01.
> I did a fresh installation of Ubuntu 9.10. After that though
> Debian 5.0.1 installation is shown in the boot menu, am
> unable to boot into Debian.

> I get a message saying "error: You need to load the kernel
> first". Can anyone help solve this problem? Or do i need to
> do a fresh install of Debian again?  And if I do, will there be
> any problem booting into Ubuntu 9.10 after that?

Your Debian /boot/grub/grub.cfg stanza should be:

If Debian's /boot is not a separate partition from /:

menuentry "Debian 5.01..." {
	insmod ext2
	set root=[hd(x,y) of /]
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set [UUID of /]
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30-2-686 root=[/dev/sdZ of /] ro
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-2.6.30-2-686
}

If Debian's /boot is a separate partition from /:
(note that there isn't any "/boot" in the last two lines)

menuentry "Debian 5.01..." {
	insmod ext2
	set root=[hd(x,y) of /boot]
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set [UUID of /boot]
	linux	/vmlinuz-2.6.30-2-686 root=[/dev/sdZ of /] ro
	initrd	/initrd.img-2.6.30-2-686
}

(Assuming that you are not using dmraid, mdraid, or lvm.)