Jolly (updating) season

So the new  Ubuntu is here. And as the release candidate is now available I went for the update. Again, I am stunned at how good this OS is, and how many people that are still living in ignorance, when it comes to linux.

One thing that was annoying, was that my GRUB (which allows me to choose which OS I want to boot [Ubuntu, Win or OS X]) broke after updating.

So I thought a little written instruction to fix it might be helpful for anyone else that runs into this problem.

What you need: Ubuntu 9.10 (or 10.04) installer CD

1. Boot up your computer using the Ubuntu Install CD
2. Select ” Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer “
3. Once the OS is good and ready start Terminal ( Application > Accessories > Terminal )
4. Type “sudo -i” to enter into root mode
5. Run “fdisk -l” to see all of your partitions and hard drives on your machine
6. Look for the /dev/ entry identified as Linux not to be confused with the swap partition
7. Now to create a mount-point for your partition type “mkdir /media/root“
8. Now mount the identified partition into it by typing “mount /dev/sda# /media/root” (sda# being the partition identified in step 6)
9. Confirm your root location by typing “ls /media/root” and ensuing that you see something resembling this:
   

   bin dev initrd.img lib32 media proc selinux tmp vmlinuz
   boot etc initrd.img.old lib64 mnt root srv usr vmlinuz.old
   cdrom home lib lost+found opt sbin sys var
   bin dev initrd.img lib32 media proc selinux tmp vmlinuzboot etc initrd.img.old lib64 mnt root srv usr vmlinuz.oldcdrom home lib lost+found opt sbin sys var

10. If all is well in point 9  install GRUB to the boot partition by typing “sudo grub-install –root-directory=/media/root /dev/sda” which should return

Installation finished. No error reported. This is the contents of the device map /media/root/boot/grub/device.map. Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect, fix it and re-run the script `grub-install’. (hd0) /dev/sda

11. You are ready to reboot.
12. If only your Linux partions are showing, do not worry. Boot up your OS, open up terminal again, and run “sudo update-grub2” that should do the trick.

and with that, I whish you a jolly updating season