extlinux for Debian
-------------------

In order to use extlinux as your bootloader, you should do the following steps:

1. install extlinux:

   # apt-get install extlinux

2. install a syslinux theme to optain a graphical menu displayed to select the
   kernel to boot (optional):

   # apt-get install syslinux-common syslinux-themes-debian-squeeze memtest86+

   Note: syslinux-themes-debian is at the time of writing pending in the NEW
   queue since 7 months because ftp-masters apparently decided to not process
   it. Until they have the decency to do so, that package can be obtained
   from http://syslinux.debian-maintainers.org/.

3. activate extlinux helpers scripts by creating the bootloaders directory:

   # mkdir /boot/extlinux

4. create all necessary config files:

   # extlinux-update

5. optionally alter defaults (like timeout etc.) in /etc/default/extlinux and
   running extlinux-update again.

6. install extlinux into your harddisk (e.g. sda):

   # extlinux-install /dev/sda

7. be happy :)


Notes:

  * the current MBR is saved to /boot/mbr-${DEVICE}.old. In case of troubles,
    you can restore it with the following command:

    # dd if=/boot/mbr-${DEVICE}.old of=/dev/${DEVICE} bs=466 count=1

    Remember that MBR backups are not rotated which means that every call of
    extlinux-install will overwrite the previous backup with a new one.

 -- Daniel Baumann <daniel@debian.org>  Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:56:04 +0200