How to create a bootable CD running GRUB4DOS on Linux (Ubuntu Hardy)

GRUB4DOS is a flexible, feature-extended version of the GRUB boot manager. This blog post explains how to create a bootable CD which boots GRUB4DOS, from which you can boot almost anything. To create a bootable floppy instead, see http://ptspts.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-create-bootable-floppy-running.html.

Run this shell script to create the CD image grldr.iso:

#! /bin/bash
# by pts@fazekas.hu at Sat Jul 11 16:24:31 CEST 2009
GRUB4DOS_ZIP=grub4dos-0.4.4-2009-06-20.zip
GRUB4DOS_DIR=grub4dos-0.4.4  # as extracted from $GRUB4DOS_ZIP
set -ex
TO_INSTALL=''
type -p mkisofs || TO_INSTALL="$TO_INSTALL mkisofs"
type -p wget || TO_INSTALL="$TO_INSTALL wget"
type -p unzip || TO_INSTALL="$TO_INSTALL unzip"
test "$TO_INSTALL" && sudo apt-get install $TO_INSTALL
wget -O "$GRUB4DOS_ZIP" http://download.gna.org/grub4dos/"$GRUB4DOS_ZIP"
unzip -o "$GRUB4DOS_ZIP"
test "$GRUB4DOS_DIR"/grldr
rm -rf grldr.iso.dir
mkdir grldr.iso.dir
cp "$GRUB4DOS_DIR"/{grldr,menu.lst} grldr.iso.dir
mkisofs -R -b grldr -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -o grldr.iso grldr.iso.dir
: All OK, CD image grldr.iso created.

Please note that you may want to adjust the GRUB4DOS_ZIP variable above in order to download a more recent version of GRUB4DOS, when its available. you can get the list of versions from http://download.gna.org/grub4dos/.

You may use the CD image grldr.iso in your virtualization software (such as VirtualBox), or you may burn it to a CD with:

$ sudo apt-get install growisofs
$ growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/cdrom=grldr.iso