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binW
Asked: 2011-02-03 06:10:27 +0800 CST

How do I find out which boot loader I have?

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I know Grub is the one installed by default when installing Ubuntu but I am faced with an embedded system running 9.10 Desktop Edition. Following are the contents of lsb-release file

ubuntu@ubuntu-desktop:/boot$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=karmic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.10"

but this system does not have Grub bootloader and I want to find out which one its using. So any ideas?

bootloader

5 Answers

  1. If you have the /etc/lilo.conf file then you are using LILO (LInux LOader) This means that if you type lilo for example you should see the command dialog for the lilo booter.

    If you have the /boot/grub/ directory then you are using GRUB (Grand Unified Boot Loader) This means that you should be able to use all the grub file like grub-install,grub-reboot...

    Ubuntu 9.10 was the first version to use GRUB2 https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DualBoot/Grub

    UPDATE:

    Here is a script to check inside the first sector of the hard drive for what boot manager it is using:

    Assuming your hard drive is at SDA then:

    sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 2>/dev/null | strings | grep -Eoi 'grub|lilo|acronis|reboot'

    will tell you which bootloader you are using.

    You can imagine the rest...
    The list of boot loaders is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_boot_loaders and http://wiki.debian.org/BootLoader (For Debian based distros)
    Also if you want to SEE the real binary output then add -a to the grep part. For example:

    sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 2>&1 | grep -a GRUB which will show you the data in that first block.

    Now with this new information you HAVE to find the boot manager you are using.

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  2. Best Answer

    The boot info script will detect all kinds of useful information about your boot configuration:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

    • 14

  3. For GRUB the command to check what version you have is:

    grub-install -V

    or

    grub-install --version

    More to find here:
    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

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  4. Use the dd command to read the boot sector, then use grep to know your bootloader:

    dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 2>&1 | grep GRUB
dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 2>&1 | grep LILO
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  5. You are safer checking by inquiring the version from the tools itself (than using low-level dd or other artifacts).

    For example, testing for lilo:

    root# lilo -V
bash: lilo: command not found

root# grub-install --version
grub-install (GRUB) 2.02~beta2-22

    Of course, this will not work if you have both installed. If that is the case, to avoid confusion, uninstall the ones you don't need.

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