| This is GNU GRUB, the GRand Unified Bootloader. GRUB is intended to |
| provide important bootloader features that are missing from typical |
| personal computer BIOSes: |
| |
| - provides fully-featured command line and graphical interfaces |
| - recognizes fdisk partitions and BSD disklabels |
| - can dynamically read Linux ext2fs, BSD ufs, MS-DOS FAT16 and FAT32, |
| and Minix fs filesystems, plus hardcoded blocklists |
| - can boot Multiboot-compliant kernels (such as GNU Mach), as well |
| as standard Linux and BSD kernels |
| |
| See the file NEWS for a description of recent changes to GRUB. |
| |
| |
| You need recent developmental environment to build GRUB. We recommend |
| you use the following utilities: |
| |
| * binutils 2.9.1.0.23 or later (Do not use early 2.9.1.0.x!) |
| |
| Binutils has changed the behavior of 16bit assembler between 2.9.1 |
| and 2.9.1.0.x, and we support only 2.9.1.0.x and higher. It is available |
| from ftp.varesearch.com:/pub/support/hjl/binutils. |
| |
| NOTE: you should check for the version of your binutils by the following |
| command: |
| |
| $ gcc -Wl,-v 2>&1 | grep "GNU ld" |
| |
| This will show two versions, like this: |
| |
| GNU ld version 2.9.5 (with BFD 2.9.5.0.13) |
| |
| The latter is what you should see. If you have installed a recent |
| version of binutils but this version number is not identical with it, |
| you need to specify the option ``--with-binutils=DIR'' for configure. |
| |
| * texinfo 4.0 or later |
| |
| We use some new macros in the manuals, so you need a recent TeXinfo |
| release. See http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/texinfo.html, for more |
| information. |
| |
| |
| These below are required when you develop GRUB or when you get it from |
| the CVS: |
| |
| * automake 19990620 or later |
| |
| The new feature, per-executable flags, is requred, so you need to get |
| an unreleased version from the CVS. See |
| http://sourceware.cygnus.com/automake/, for more information. |
| |
| |
| See the file INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install the |
| GRUB data and program files. See the GRUB manual for details about |
| using GRUB as your bootloader. |
| |
| GNU GRUB has a page on the web. See: |
| |
| http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub.en.html (English) |
| http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub.ja.html (Japanese) |
| |
| If you have any suggestions or ideas, please send electronic mail to the |
| GRUB mailing list <bug-grub@gnu.org>. |
| |
| When you encounter any problem or bug, please submit it to |
| <bug-grub@gnu.org> with information about your computer and what you did |
| as much as possible. For example, your operating system and the |
| geometries of your drives are very important. |
| |
| When you enhance/fix GRUB, please send the patch to <bug-grub@gnu.org>. |
| Do not forget to write your changes to ChangeLog; That helps us to |
| understand your changes correctly. And it is preferable that your patch |
| is the unified format. Just append `-u' option to the command `diff'. |
| |
| NOTE: you should stick to the GNU Coding Standards. Look at the URL |
| <http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_toc.html> to understand it. |
| |
| DEVELOPERS: to subscribe to the mailing list, send e-mail to |
| <bug-grub-request@gnu.org>. You can get the latest GRUB CVS tree from |
| `:pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.gnu.org:/gd/gnu/anoncvsroot', module `grub'. |
| Just hit enter when CVS prompts you for a password. |
| |
| IMPORTANT SIZE LIMITS: |
| |
| - For the FFS stage1.5, if you want to fit into the "bootloader" area |
| of an FFS partition, it cannot be larger than 512 * 14 disk sectors, |
| or 7168 bytes. |