Groovy Arcade; Groovy Mame; Ubuntu; MameUI32: Where do I start?

[Spacedueler]

I ran the Groovy Arcade LiveCD and couldn't believe that after messing with Soft15khz, setting and resetting the monitor's width and height and never getting things just right, every included game filled the screen and just looked awesome. So I think I'm going for the hard disk install. So my quetions are:

1) since I don't have a dedicated drive for the install I need to pre make some partitions. What file system do I need so set up for the install? Ext3?
2) will this work next to my Windows XP and Ubuntu partitions and will I be able to boot to Groovy Arcade from Grub2?

Thanks

[Ansa89]

1) Ext3 should be ok, but the best is ext4 (imho).
2) Yes, groovyarcade is a "normal" linux distro, so it can live next to windows and other linux distros without problems, and you can boot it from grub2 (you need to know how to edit its config file).

[Spacedueler]

1) Ext3 should be ok, but the best is ext4 (imho).
2) Yes, groovyarcade is a "normal" linux distro, so it can live next to windows and other linux distros without problems, and you can boot it from grub2 (you need to know how to edit its config file).

I installed GA to an empty partition (sda3). Something happened to my Grub2 (installed with Ubuntu 11.10) - I get error 17. Thought I'd ask about that here while I start to Google for solutions. Did GA install it's own Grub settings on top of my existing installation possibly?

[Ansa89]

Did GA install it's own Grub settings on top of my existing installation possibly?

Yes, you need to reinstall grub2 from your ubuntu installation (there are a lot of how-to for this).

[Calamity]

I could fix the "error 17" issue on my USB installation by editing GRUB params like this:

root (hd1, 0) ... change it for: root (hd0, 0)

[Ansa89]

Yes, but he should better use grub2 from ubuntu (imho), so he can have all his three systems listed at boot time.

[Calamity]

Yes, but he should better use grub2 from ubuntu (imho), so he can have all his three systems listed at boot time.

Ah, I get it now

[Spacedueler]

Did GA install it's own Grub settings on top of my existing installation possibly?

Yes, you need to reinstall grub2 from your ubuntu installation (there are a lot of how-to for this).

Thanks. I fixed it while you guys were replying. I found, downloaded and burned Boot-Repair (iso)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10871917#post10871917
I booted the disk and let it do the recommended repairs (It reinstalled Grub) and I'm back up and running! It create a Summary if you are interested.

[Spacedueler]

I spoke too soon. Windows and Ubuntu load from Grub, but GA did not. I get this instead:

Error: no such device: aa484e11-7e4d-4a38-b140-3a5531181bc6
error: no such file system
error: you need to load the kernel first

I looked at grub.cfg - here is the GA entry (and Windows for reference). GA is installed on sda3:

menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Professional (on /dev/sda1)" --class windows --class os {
   insmod part_msdos
   insmod ntfs
   set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 4414DEC314DEB6E0
   drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
   chainloader +1
}
menuentry "Groovy Arcade Linux (on /dev/sda3)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
   insmod part_msdos
   insmod ext2
   set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root aa484e11-7e4d-4a38-b140-3a5531181bc6
   linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=LABEL=/GA doscsi video=DVI-I-1:640x480ec
   initrd /boot/initrd

The "no such device" the floppy search
Maybe the problem is "root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192" (it's looking for the install on the ram disk that the livecd uses?)

[Ansa89]

The problem is that it searches for "aa484e11-7e4d-4a38-b140-3a5531181bc6" as root partition (this should be the uuid of GA root partition), but as we can see it isn't.
Try to replace "aa484e11-7e4d-4a38-b140-3a5531181bc6" with "/dev/sda3" (without quotes).

[Spacedueler]

The problem is that it searches for "aa484e11-7e4d-4a38-b140-3a5531181bc6" as root partition (this should be the uuid of GA root partition), but as we can see it isn't.
Try to replace "aa484e11-7e4d-4a38-b140-3a5531181bc6" with "/dev/sda3" (without quotes).

Thanks Ansa89 - I tried just what you suggested - same result. I tried a few other things also. First I removed the search line:

 menuentry "Groovy Arcade Linux (on /dev/sda3)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
   insmod part_msdos
   insmod ext2
   set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
   linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=LABEL=/GA doscsi video=DVI-I-1:640x480ec
   initrd /boot/initrd

response is this:

    error: unknown file system
    error: you need to load the kernel first

Notice unknown vs. no such? I think grub found it, but it's "unknown." I have no idea...

[Ansa89]

I'm not really expert of grub2, but here

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set root='(hd0,msdos3)'you try to load a dos partition instead a ext4 partition.
Try this

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menuentry "Groovy Arcade Linux (on /dev/sda3)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
   insmod part_msdos
   insmod ext2
   set root='(hd0,3)'
   linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=LABEL=/GA doscsi video=DVI-I-1:640x480ec
   initrd /boot/initrdAnd if you feel lucky, also this

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menuentry "Groovy Arcade Linux (on /dev/sda3)" {
   set root='(hd0,3)'
   linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=LABEL=/GA doscsi video=DVI-I-1:640x480ec
   initrd /boot/initrd

[Spacedueler]

I tried all variations of what you suggest - still with the same results. I even tried from the grub command line as simple command:

   grub> linux  (hd0,3)/boot/vmlinuz

It spits back "unknown file system" If I eliminate the "boot" location (just for experimenting) and enter:

   grub> linux  (hd0,3)/vmlinuz

I get "file system not found" - I've concluded that grub finds the partition and files, but sees them as "unknown" for some reason. I also confirmed the partition and files are there by booting to Ubuntu and using the file manager to locate them. Is it possible this is a grub2 issue? This version is 1.99 - installed with the latest Ubuntu (11.10). Groovy Arcade did run on my system from the liveCD.

[Ansa89]

One more try: from grub command line write these commands (in this order)

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insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,3)'
linux /boot/vmlinuz