Leo Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 I use Grub mainly because I couldn't get lilo to work on my machine when I installed MDK 9.0 and grub just worked. However I have come to appreciate the ease with which it can be altered and the ability to amend boot options at start up Leo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 gee I d/k...if starting xmms means that once a week my sys is going to lock, I guess I'm not going to start xmms and use an alternative That's not a person preference. I would prefer xmms because of it's features but I don't want to screw anything up, rigth? BUT.....let me repeat that....BUT, I can see how those that have never had lilo screw everything wouldn't see it this way. In that case, IT IS person preference until the day comes, and hopefully it won't, that you boot and see li and can not repair. That's why many grub user do say it is better. Because lilo has screws them many times and grub never has. Lilo is perdy, but anything that has to write to the mbr with every change is just not smart and good sense IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 Its a good point but li or even 9090909090 isn't the end of the world if you have a floppy or CD... Ive screwed mine more times than I cate to remember but i can fix it blindfolded now! Its not really noobie friendly perhaps but a chroot only takes a couple of minutes once you know what UR doin.... Now it would be nice to be able to override it like grub... and I must put some damned effort in.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 (edited) I'm not talking about floppies and cd's fixing it. That's easy. I'm talking about floppies and cd's not being able to fix it. That includes many other means of repair as well. And your only left with the option of reinstalling 5 OS's, 200 apps, and a week of tweaking and loss of data to your last bkup, all because you used a bootloader that writes to the mbr for everything? No thx! Linux forums are littered with post like these. Granted, probably half involves and end user prob, but it's still quite frequent because it is frequent that the mbr gets rewritten. Compared to the most universal bootloader in existence that doesn't to that. I haven't written to my mbr in over 6 months (just a guess). Edited February 18, 2005 by bvc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 (edited) and if it is very possible that a n00b is going to have to boot to rescue mode and learn vi so to change lilo.conf , why is lilo the default for mdk? That's silly. It's not for most, why is mandrake holding on the the old? I'm not trying to spawn the discussion, but making a point with in it. It's a clear cut reason is all. There is a better. The fact that the bigger, and better (even if smaller) distros and partition magic use grub is proof of that. Edited February 18, 2005 by bvc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 LILO That is what came with my Mandy 9.1 and it has never failed me. Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 and if it is very possible that a n00b is going to have to boot to rescue mode and learn vi so to change lilo.conf , why is lilo the default for mdk? That's silly. It's not for most, why is mandrake holding on the the old? I'm not trying to spawn the discussion, but making a point with in it. It's a clear cut reason is all. There is a better. The fact that the bigger, and better (even if smaller) distros and partition magic use grub is proof of that. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Probably they keep it for the same reason as me! Lazyness/familiarity. Unless the disk is physically damaged though you can always rewrite it... You can also install lilo to a partition.... though you will still need some boot loader on the MBR it can even by ntldr if you like! and if it is very possible that a n00b is going to have to boot to rescue mode and learn vi so to change lilo.conf , why is lilo the default for mdk? Agreed, the rescue mode is pathetic really... However a decent live CD even just with nano instead or as well as vi might help... but I have never fsck'd lilo to the point of not being able to overwrite the MBR.. However I always hand-write my lilo's (part of the reason I haven't given em up yet...) and never use a GUI tool on something like that. I'd love to start using GRUB though.... any easystart tutorial? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 If the mbr gets fried you'll reinstall all your stuff anyway. WindowsME has fried the mbr, but never lilo. And I also think the reason lilo is there is gui power. Windows users are accustomed to gui, period. lilo is guiish. I also agree with Gowater that a live cd is the repair item to have, which means an average user can repair using a gui. Those of us that can do command line know that it is easier and better, once you learn. But the average user is coming from gui and going to gui. gui is here to stay and lilo all the way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 If the mbr gets fried you'll reinstall all your stuff anyway.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Why....? If by fried you mean won't boot.. you just reinstall the boot loader... everything will still be there... this is when a decent liveCD really helps cause you need to find the partitions and its easier/quicker with a GUI... if you mean fried as in physcially then yep you need a new disk.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 You can also install lilo to a partition.... though you will still need some boot loader on the MBR it can even by ntldr if you like!yeah, I wrote a tips and tricks ;) Agreed, the rescue mode is pathetic really...However a decent live CD even just with nano instead or as well as vi might help n00b: livecd? what's that? how do I remount the partition writable and what does chroot mean? Grub? so if I used grub I wouldn't have to do all this? Cool! ...ooo... and grub is perdy now? even better! ...and the only diff with grubs config is how it numbers partitions? I can get that. Ix, grub is gui to Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkelve Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 I use Grub, because SuSe uses it as default. In Mandrake I used both Lilo (long time) and Grub (short time) and I have to say I think I liked Lilo better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qchem Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 I'm wondering why everyones harping on about how good lilo looks - I haven't used it properly since mdk 8.2 but it looked nasty then. Grubs default "GUI" in both fedora and gentoo looks purrty to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkelve Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 I'm wondering why everyones harping on about how good lilo looks - I haven't used it properly since mdk 8.2 but it looked nasty then. Grubs default "GUI" in both fedora and gentoo looks purrty to me. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It didn't 'look' better, just 'felt' better... I can't explain why though. Probably because the 1st time I used Grub it gave me a lot of trouble... These things tend to stick I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 You can also install lilo to a partition.... though you will still need some boot loader on the MBR it can even by ntldr if you like!yeah, I wrote a tips and tricks ;) Agreed, the rescue mode is pathetic really...However a decent live CD even just with nano instead or as well as vi might help n00b: livecd? what's that? how do I remount the partition writable and what does chroot mean? Grub? so if I used grub I wouldn't have to do all this? Cool! ...ooo... and grub is perdy now? even better! ...and the only diff with grubs config is how it numbers partitions? I can get that. Ix, grub is gui to <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Right click and change_read_write (in kanotix) chroot. ... is a particualrly smelly cigarette Its not that hard just like grub parts are probably not so hard... mount /dev/hdaX /tmp -o rw chroot /tmp nano /etc/lilo.conf <blah blah> lilo (optionally check flags) CTRL+D CTRL+D reboot Unfortunately there really is no easy way to mess with partitions. PM is pretty good ... and I think as good as it can get but its still googletime for the av noob... If you fancy a GRUB4LILO users howto (or tricks and tips) it would be appreciated tho.... Probably because the 1st time I used Grub it gave me a lot of trouble... Same here but due to my inexperience... I like what Ive seen of it... but I just had a few experiences where my knowledge of lilo allowed me to dig myself outa a hole! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted February 18, 2005 Report Share Posted February 18, 2005 (edited) You can also install lilo to a partition.... though you will still need some boot loader on the MBR it can even by ntldr if you like!yeah, I wrote a tips and tricks ;) Agreed, the rescue mode is pathetic really...However a decent live CD even just with nano instead or as well as vi might help n00b: livecd? what's that? how do I remount the partition writable and what does chroot mean? Grub? so if I used grub I wouldn't have to do all this? Cool! ...ooo... and grub is perdy now? even better! ...and the only diff with grubs config is how it numbers partitions? I can get that. Ix, grub is gui to <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Right click and change_read_write (in kanotix) chroot. ... is a particualrly smelly cigarette Its not that hard just like grub parts are probably not so hard... mount /dev/hdaX /tmp -o rw chroot /tmp nano /etc/lilo.conf <blah blah> lilo (optionally check flags) CTRL+D CTRL+D reboot Unfortunately there really is no easy way to mess with partitions. PM is pretty good ... and I think as good as it can get but its still googletime for the av noob... If you fancy a GRUB4LILO users howto (or tricks and tips) it would be appreciated tho.... Probably because the 1st time I used Grub it gave me a lot of trouble... Same here but due to my inexperience... I like what Ive seen of it... but I just had a few experiences where my knowledge of lilo allowed me to dig myself outa a hole! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> the point was that if grub was used instead of lilo, none of it would have been necessary ;) as for a grub4lilo_users? I don't get that. They are the same, except for partition naming. That desn't justify a howto. So that knowledge of lilo was knowledge of the linux boot and grub would have sufficed.....but you probably wouldn't have been in the situation and needed the knowledge ;) Edited February 18, 2005 by bvc 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.