The dialog installer from the standard LiveCD installed GRUB, but didn't detect the Windows Vista Home Premium installation also availible on my machine. I had to add the configuration lines before I could boot into Windows again. Automatic detection is technically possibe, because Ubuntu and SuSE do it too Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install Windows Vista 2. Standard-install Gentoo 3. Reboot Actual Results: The system booted into Grub, with a nice background image but without an item to boot Windows. Expected Results: It should boot into Grub, with the required configuration automatically added. The Vista installation was OEM. I switched from Ubuntu to Gentoo, and the Gentoo installer replaced Ubuntu's GRUB with the one from the Gentoo LiveCD. Booting Gentoo worked fine, I edited the menu.conf and it worked, but automagically adding it would have been more comfortable.
I would be happy to support Vista detection. I just need to know what to look for as far as the partition layout goes. What does vista do differently from other versions of windows? Currently the installer just looks for vfat/ntfs partitions and marks them as possible windows partitions in Grub.
(In reply to comment #1) > I would be happy to support Vista detection. I just need to know what to look > for as far as the partition layout goes. What does vista do differently from > other versions of windows? Currently the installer just looks for vfat/ntfs > partitions and marks them as possible windows partitions in Grub. > Vista uses NTFS, but what do you mean by 'mark as possible'? I forgot to tell I also had 2 other partitions in place during install.
*** Bug 216817 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
IMO, would be nice to see an option to view the grub file, along with an option to install grub boot loader to a other drives. Auto detection can sometimes be buggy. When I got to this point, I had no idea which hard drive grub installed itself too since I installed 2008.0 beta1 onto the second hard drive. (See Bug #216990 concerning my hardware layout & my slight problem.)
Sorry, about the dup. I Didn't see it in the search. For the auto detection, I think it would be best to present grub in a dialog with the NTFS and/or FAT32 partitions as options and let the user check a box to include them. Also there should be a button to add aditional options, since some people may have other partitions with other operating systems. Some people I know have multiple linux installs. That way grub can be configured before the first reboot. Perhaps make the option groups selectable and have New/Edit/Delete buttons/Move up/Move Down buttons. The latter 2 for sorting in the desired order. If your installer is using/can use python I could possibly help with that dialog. My setup with the new larger hard drive so I could put gentoo on it. hda1 = ntfs - winXP hda2 = fat32 - general storage and easy to share with gentoo. hda3 = ext2 - /boot gentoo. ... In my case I would have unchecked the /hda2 option since it does not have an operating system in it.
Well, patches are always welcome. ;]
The installer is deprecated.
