Grub Device Naming Convention

Grub device naming convention is totally different from the operating system partition naming convention. Its an important thing to keep in mind while working with grub.

The below table will be helpful in remembring the grub device naming convention.

(hd0)	First hard disk installed in the computer
(hd1)	Second Hard disk installed in the computer
(hd0,1)	First partition of first hard disk, in GRUB2

What is the difference between Grub-Leagacy & GRUB-2?

There are some notable differences between the previous Grub-Leagacy and the new GRUB-2.

• Previously in Grub-Legacy partition number's of a hard disk, used to start from 0,1,2,..etc. But in GRUB-2 it starts the partition naming convention from 1,2,3..etc.
• It now recognizes many more new file system's like ext-4
• There are no more stages like stage-1,stage-1.5 etc, in grub image files, like the Grub-Legacy
• Grub-2 has started using modules which can be loaded as per requirement.
• GRUB-2 is capable enough to determine a hard disk partition using UUID's(Universally Unique Identifier)
• The configuration file name is grub.cfg(no more menu.lst & grub.config)
• The new grub-2 configuration file is highly configurable, compared to grub-legacy config file.
• GRUB-2 also supports EFI(Extensible Firmware Interface)

Regards

Gurudatta N.R

Advantages of GRUB

1) Grub has got several added advantages, compared to previous boot loaders, and also many "Proprietary boot loader's".

2) Grub can be used to load, almost all operating system's available, with the help of a function called chain-loading.

3) Grub does not require the exact physical location of the operating system kernel in the

hard disk. It just requires the hard disk number(like the first hard disk,second hard disk),

and the partition number, along with the file name of the kernel. Because, 

4) GRUB understands the format in which kernel is made.

You can modify, the booting options, like kernel parameter's and its location while booting, through GRUB command line.

Note: Taken from net

Regards

Gurudatta N.R