Install Grub to secondary location or (build a new Distro)...?

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@WinterStreet, I have just successfully installed Linux Mint Cinnamon to a Lenovo Yoga laptop.... but I installed GRUB to a USB flash drive. The computer won't boot without the USB, so it is indeed stored to a different location that perhaps you can work with. I saved screenshots along the way and will post them here if you think this will help you. I think I could repeat the process for Debian or probably any other distro.

This reminds me of a long time ago... booting Linux on a Lilo floppy disk! :eek:


SlowCoder said:
Oh, and it looks like I dodged this bullet ... one of my machines is a Lenovo 330-15IKB.
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My Yoga is a pretty good system, but I have a Lenovo Ideapad Slim that is my problem child, with only 64GB eMMC storage instead of SSD/HDD. That is the one that runs Fedora just fine though. The Ideapad was super cheap, so my expecations of it are not too great.
 
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As I keep Getting a "Lather, Rinse. Repeat" situation where I ask for A and I'm told I asked for B and this is how you do it. I want to know
Old Tom Bombadil said:
@WinterStreet, I have just successfully installed Linux Mint Cinnamon to a Lenovo Yoga laptop.... but I installed GRUB to a USB flash drive. The computer won't boot without the USB, so it is indeed stored to a different location that perhaps you can work with. I saved screenshots along the way and will post them here if you think this will help you. I think I could repeat the process for Debian or probably any other distro.

This reminds me of a long time ago... booting Linux on a Lilo floppy disk! :eek:



My Yoga is a pretty good system, but I have a Lenovo Ideapad Slim that is my problem child, with only 64GB eMMC storage instead of SSD/HDD. That is the one that runs Fedora just fine though. The Ideapad was super cheap, so my expecations of it are not too great.
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And That is the crux of my issue. I have very little experience with Fedora and do I would like to install something else and apparently my choices are Fedora and Windows (Getting rid of Windows being what spurned this whole thing). The Laptop will not let me access what I need to do so and instead of answering my question of "How to modify a Live USB install to do what apparently I am not able to I get a lot of "All you need to fix your issue is to access the part of your computer you cannot access and do this".

So far Fedora is the only install that installs the way this computer WILL accept and I'm trying to figure out how to use Debian.
 
WinterStreet said:
The Laptop will not let me access what I need to do so...
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This sounds like not being able to access the BIOS.

@Old Tom Bombadil - wasn't there a button on some of the Lenovos that can be used for that?

@WinterStreet on Debian, it can be problematic to install on certain computers, but this can usually be worked around by using the non-free .iso - that does not mean that it costs money, but that rather it accommodates drivers requiring proprietary software.

If you wish to try that avenue, you can get it here

https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/

Wizard
 
O.k... People are not comprehending the whole issue. I'm asking how to get a Live USB to do something and I'm getting a lot of you just need to Access the portion of the computer that you are not able to access and do this. The one I love the most is I ask about accessing the Live configuration which the online documentation I access with CTRL+ALT+Fx and somehow I'm supposed to press the CTRL+ALT+the Hard drive Destination, I figured it out without any help from the forums when I got frusterated and did my own research. Last time I try this as the first time was trying to install onto the computer and that took two weeks until I found the vug report explaining what was going on and now to install I need the Live USB to install in it's fallback location. The fact that everyone seems to think this is a Legacy boot issue even after I say I've tried Legacy and UEFI both MULTIPLE times.

I posted to make things easier on myself and I end up getting just access the piece of the computer that you are unable to and do this. I'm looking for instructions as to accessing a Live USB and how to modify it so that the install will do something specific and everyone is telling me to do it their way which completely ignores the fact that I cannot access the pieces of the computer to run that which their solutions require me to access. Something about Declaritive statements seems to confuse people and knowing this I just know better now.
 
WinterStreet said:
O.k... People are not comprehending the whole issue. I'm asking how to get a Live USB to do something
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You can't get the liveusb to install Grub on the fallback location, the only way to do that is to manually do it after the installation yourself. However you can't seem to chroot into your system because of a bug or something like that with your system.
 
f33dm3bits said:
You can't get the liveusb to install Grub on the fallback location, the only way to do that is to manually do it after the installation yourself. However you can't seem to chroot into your system because of a bug or something like that with your system.
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As I Did install Grub into the Fallback location Using the Live USB and have now been able to use a total of 3 different Linux System... So I'm pretty sure that a Lack of any clue has been preventing people from answering my question directly. Things are only impossible when yyou don't try (Or ask in forums apparently). It is possible to do what I was looking to do; the solution was just too far "out of the box" and that was just to much for the users of the site, So by all means, Say it is not possible.

Anyone that has issues installing (Especially using a Lenove Ideapad 320, but I'm sure it's not limited to Lenovo)
 
WinterStreet said:
As I Did install Grub into the Fallback location Using the Live USB and have now been able to use a total of 3 different Linux System...
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I have searched the web sometime ago if if is possible with any of the installers and I have not found it documented anywhere, that being the reason why I answered it isn't possible. Since if it's not clearly documented in most of the cases you can just assume that's not possible since there's no way to know unless you wrote the software yourself. Just because you came across someone in the past that happened to know a detail that doesn't seem to be documented anywhere means that everyone is going to know that. I can try and search again if you tell me which distribution you are trying to install so I can see if any of the documentation as been renewed , was it Fedora or Debian based?
 
f33dm3bits said:
I have searched the web sometime ago if if is possible with any of the installers and I have not found it documented anywhere, that being the reason why I answered it isn't possible. Since if it's not clearly documented in most of the cases you can just assume that's not possible since there's no way to know unless you wrote the software yourself. Just because you came across someone in the past that happened to know a detail that doesn't seem to be documented anywhere means that everyone is going to know that. I can try and search again if you tell me which distribution you are trying to install so I can see if any of the documentation as been renewed , was it Fedora or Debian based?
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I tried on on both Debian (Mint and Ubuntu) and Fedora 36. So it works on any linux Distrribution, so lack of imagination seems to be the issue. You are more than welcome to look for it, but I'm pretty sure you'll come up empty as you are looking for the wrong thing as I have been facing for a bit now.
 
Some installers allow you to run a post-installation script, you could probably try and add the fallback grub-installation line there.
 
And as stated here, you could manually move the location where grub is installed to the fallback location. All you would have to do is boot from the live usb after installing and then mount de partition with you /boot on for example /mnt. Then you use the mv command to move it to the fallback location. This way you also wouldn't need to chroot into your system for. Maybe that's worth a try?
 
As I have solved my issue you could probably is A) Late and B) irrelavant so anyone that has issues with installing Grub can contact me and I will telle them how I did the "impossible". I would post the solution, but I don't care to hear how what I did is not possible.
 
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It is possible that it is there and if someone gave me an answer that didn't involve pressing the Hard Drive... I'm pretty sure it's this button Labeled fn, but it's irrelavant as I didn't use that button combination to access the Live USB in the first place and people get on my case for using all caps. It's O.k. to make an entire post of one sentence over and over again in all caps? Seems a little Hypocritical to me. About as useful as the rest of the posts telling me to just use the functions that you are unable to access also though...
 
Hey, you are welcome to resign any time you like, if you don't find the Forum to be of value?

Just let me know and I can press the button.

Even our youngest Members in their early teens can answer questions asked of them in a civil fashion, and as you have not done that with at least 5 out of 6 questions that I can readily discern, then you don't leave us a lot of material to work from.

Your choice.

Wizard
 
Feel free to press the button. So far all I have gotten a slew of emails telling me that I should do what I was trying to fix to fix my issue on top or "That's not possible". Frankly I ended solving my own issue so this is just filling up my email.
 
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Nice catch, Your Lordship ;)

Now you see, that's just bad manners, but I should not be surprised. Good Form or Best Practice would be to close down one thread, open another, and to explain what help had been provided elsewhere.

My crystal ball is in at the shop for a service.

I'm happy to press that button, Brian.

Thanks to all Helpers for your efforts.

Wizard
 
One of our friends and helpers has suggested to me that it might be useful to future readers to include the solution found by the OP at linuxquestions.org as linked to in #37 above, and I agree, so that is as follows

For the record the command I was looking for was "grub-install--force-extra" which forces Grub to install to the secondary location (On the Hard Drive where the computer is looking) as opposed to "grub-install --force-extra-removable" which does the same thing, but to a USB or Removable media device. The question was "How to use the Live USB to install to a fallback directory ON THE COMPUTER. Noone told me how to enter it into the Live USB or Where to enter it so it would do what I want just how to put it in the fallback ON THE USB.
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Thanks for the suggestion.

Wizard
 
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