Jim Henderson wrote:
> I was hoping I hadn't missed something with GRUB development. ;-)

In matters Linux, always assume I don't know more than you do. :-)

>>>> Maybe. I don't have any trouble using Windows' bootloader to load
>>>> GRUB. You just have to set it up right. It's pretty trivial.
>>> Yup.  But it's not something that I've ever seen automated by the Linux
>>> installers.
>> No, because they can't write to NTFS partitions. 
> 
> ntfs-3g can write safely to NTFS partitions.  

Yes, but since (as I understand it) you need a copy of ntfs.sys on your 
Linux partition to make that work, Linux first has to already be booted 
and capable of mounting the right drive and finding ntfs.sys to copy it. 
I guess you could do it, but it certainly sounds ... messy. :-)

> I almost said it didn't 
> matter, but forgot that with Windows you do have to modify boot.ini for 
> that purpose.

That's the rub.

> Yeah, it's really kinda - well, expected, I guess - that MS behaves that 
> way about how the system boots.

Dude, it's been that was since the IBM XT came out.  The very first hard 
drive, before you could have more than 4 partitions, had a boot sector 
that would boot off the "active partition". That's what it's *for*.

Yes, MS's boot sector follows the standard that's been around for a 
decade longer than Linux has. GRUB's doesn't. What do you think MS is 
doing wrong here?

> They want to be the only OS there, so 
> they just play like they are.  They should stop doing that, maybe they 
> will with Windows 7?

Doing what? I have no problem at all telling Windows to boot Linux on 
the next go, simply by changing the active partition to be partition 2 
instead of partition 1.  Once I get into Linux, I can reconfigure GRUB 
to default to booting Windows. But after that, I can never get back into 
Linux again, because Windows can't change GRUB's configuration, so if I 
set the active partition to the GRUB partition, it'll still boot Windows.

Now who is the only OS that'll boot?

If GRUB's boot sector actually loaded the boot sector off the active 
partition, just like ever other boot sector written in the history of 
hard drives on IBM computers and their clones, you could remotely switch 
back and forth by using the same procedure that's worked since day 0 on 
the IBM AT. Sadly, the Linux developers want to be the only OS that can 
be booted, so they didn't bother to follow the standard. ;-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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