iphitus Posted January 28, 2005 Report Share Posted January 28, 2005 Gowator: Grub accesses /boot, on whatever partition it's on, it then reads its config from there, and any other information. in case of a messup in the config, grub spits you to a prompt where you can manually do a grub entry. LILO, works by building itself and then installing itself and all the included kernels to the MBR. this is why LILO doesnt dynamically read it's config file, its all put there when the MBR is written. LILO doesnt require access to the hdd to load its kernels. I guess the advantage here, is you know when theres a mistake in your config, and lilo wont be reloaded onto mbr till its fixed I personally prefer LILO, i've tried grub, and I didnt get anywhere,couldnt make it go, i read faqs here and posts, googled, but no luck, doesnt matter, LILO has eternally worked for me, and i dont plan on switching. btw, lilo can do images too,for example the default mandrake bootloader is a themed lilo. And you can select your console video mode with lilo too, its actually a kernel thing. select the lilo entry you want, press space and then pass to it "vga=ask" or if you know what resolution, you can pass the appropriate command. for me 'vga=0x317' gets me 1024x768 consoles. It wouldnt be too hard to find a table of resolutions, so maybe have a looksee for that. btw: lilo doesnt corrupt the bootsector, there are a handfull of options that it has which cause problems and stop it from working though because they clash with the system. iphitus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted January 28, 2005 Report Share Posted January 28, 2005 thanks Iph... The reason i was looking is the bootup from kanotix switched from lilo and I have been eternally impressed with kanotix... you can choose the resolutions etc by pressing a key (f4 or something) then choose from a menu... its really very swish but more appropraite to the live CD. like you Ive always used lilo and never had any probs... bit i was starting to think hey maybe its worth a looksy... specially since watching anna has given me the itchy 'I wanna make my own liveCD feeling...' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted January 28, 2005 Report Share Posted January 28, 2005 For any still interested, there's a good article that came out on LWN.net some time ago comparing lilo and grub: http://lwn.net/Articles/89772/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted January 28, 2005 Report Share Posted January 28, 2005 (edited) This method is more risky than the method used by GRUB because a mis-configured LILO configuration file may leave the system unbootable (a popular way to fix this problem is to boot from Knoppix or another live CD, chroot into the partition with mis-configured lilo.conf and correct the problem). On the other hand, correcting a mis-configured GRUB is comparatively simple as GRUB will default to its command line interface where the user can boot the system manually. This flexibility is probably the main reason why many users nowadays prefer GRUB over LILO. there my friends is the reason for all the boot prob post all over the net.... how many do you see with grub ;) I love the lilo advantage section ...they had to spout out unconfirmed gibberish about grub so that it would have more than one line see Gowator, you only need one file with grub....no need to copy or chroot anything although you could if it makes you feel better. Edited January 28, 2005 by bvc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 I also use lilo cause grub dont boot my reiser4. theres patches but they dont work for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 must be an ender user prob :P I used grub with reiser for about 1.5 years back when I had 6+ distros at a time...never had that prob ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 I said reiser4 not reiserfs. Remember? grub needs to be able to read the partition to get its kernels and config. Reiser4 is not an upgrade of reiser 3, it is an entirely new, unique filesystem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 well it may actually be true now, but people used the same excuse with the old. Of course, if so many wouldn't unnecessarily use a /boot partition it wouldn't be an issue at all ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LatterDaySaint Posted February 6, 2005 Report Share Posted February 6, 2005 Hi there ,I know for newbie I could be way of track here ,but whenever I reinstall Mandrake I found it would never install lilo to mbr so that I would have no boot options on reboot, So what I would do is stick CD1 in PC and reboot and then when I got option to install or upgrade I would select upgrade and then let it do its thing untill it got to the part about choosing whether to put lilo or grub on mbr ? I would then choose Grub and put it on Floppy(fd0) and it would add my Windows XP home to boot options as well . Which means that if this fellow with problem at beginning of post reinstalled Windows like he said he has and then used Upgrade option to change his bootloader option to Grub (Very Simple) and added it to floppy instead or even both (to MBR As Well ) then wouldnt that help his Problem ,Or am I missing the issue of his Problem As I am still going through a big phase of learning what and how linux works and the terms and Languages people use ,AnyWay I hope this helps Someone who reads this post who Wants To go about changing boot options the easy way 4 a Newbie?.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted February 6, 2005 Report Share Posted February 6, 2005 well it may actually be true now, but people used the same excuse with the old. Of course, if so many wouldn't unnecessarily use a /boot partition it wouldn't be an issue at all ;) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I dont use a boot partition. Its still a problem bvc, whether i have one or not. Grub needs to be able to read the partition to to get its config and kernels, if it cant, it cant do anything Latterdaysaint: that might be a good idea, try booting off a floppy to windows... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.