set environment variable through config file

[Jing Liu]

Hi,

I have a "Ubuntu 8.10 - WindowsXP" dual boot system. I am trying to follow this documentation:

http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/Dualbootscript

to use Ubuntu through colinux 0.7.3 in WindowsXP. In my colinux configuration file I have

# This parameter will be forward to Linux kernel.
root=/dev/cobd0 COLINUX=1

And in ubuntu I have created /etc/ini.d/colinux with the contents:

if [[ "x$COLINUX" = "x1" ]]; then
    SUFFIX=colinux
else
    SUFFIX=ubuntu
fi

for conf_file in \     "/etc/fstab" \     "/etc/network/interfaces"
do
    ln -s -f $conf_file-$SUFFIX $conf_file
done

if [[ "x$COLINUX" = "x1" ]]; then
    touch /var/local/colinux
else
    rm -f /var/local/colinux
fi

: exit 0

Then I have created a link to this script in /etc/rcS.d/ with the name "S21colinux.sh"

When I booted colinux, this script was executed. However, /var/local/colinux was removed instead of being created. The output of the command "echo $COLINUX" gave empty entry. Obviously the environment variable "$COLINUX" was not set. I checked the output in Windows command window and saw the following lines:

...
Built 1 zonelists.  Total pages: 65024
Kernel command line: root=/dev/cobd0 COLINUX=1
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
...

Seems the parameters I setup in the configuration file was passed to colinux. But why wasn't it set in ubuntu?

Thanks for your help in advance!

Cheers, Jing

[Henry N.]

Not all distributions set any unhandled kernel parameters to the start script environment.

An other all times working test for running colinux is this:
if uname -r | grep -qe "-co-"
   touch /var/local/colinux
else
   rm -f /var/local/colinux
fi

[Jing Liu]

Thanks Henry,

It works for me with a little modification:

if `uname -r | grep -qe "-co-"`; then
touch /var/local/colinux
else
rm -f /var/local/colinux
fi

Cheers, Jing

[Henry N.]

Oh, yes. Sorry. I have forgotten a 'then' on copy & paste.
This was my test script:

if uname -r | grep -qe "-co-"
then
   echo "I'm in coLinux"
else 
   echo "I'm in native Linux"
fi

You not need the backtics for subshell.

[Jing Liu]

Thanks again Henry. It works for me. Cheers, Jing