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Problem booting other os's with lilo


Guest o1knives
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Guest o1knives

I am currently running ML 9.0 in a dual boot situation (it and XP). I recently got a new hard drive, and since I couldn't possibly find use for all of the space on it, I decided to try installing a few other operating systems. So I installed Debian 3.0 and BeOs Max Edition. Of course, they both overwrote the Mandrake boot manager. At first I didn't think that this would be a problem because the BeOs boot manager started up Windows and Debian fine. However, it would not start up Mandrake. So, I reinstalled the Mandrake boot manager, and now I can't get Debian or BeOs to start. The graphical lilo configuration under the mandrake control center won't let me add the two, so I edited my /etc/lilo.conf file to the following:

 

boot=/dev/hda

map=/boot/map

install=/boot/boot.b

vga=normal

default=linux

keytable=/boot/us.klt

prompt

nowarn

timeout=100

message=/boot/message

menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw

image=/boot/vmlinuz

label=linux

root=/dev/hdb2

initrd=/boot/initrd.img

append="quiet devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi"

vga=788

read-only

image=/boot/vmlinuz

label=linux-nonfb

root=/dev/hdb2

initrd=/boot/initrd.img

append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi"

read-only

other=/dev/hda1

label=windows

table=/dev/hda

other=/dev/hda5

label=beos

table=/dev/hda

image=/vmlinuz

labeo=debian

root=/dev/hda10

other=/dev/fd0

label=floppy

unsafe

image=/boot/vmlinuz

label=failsafe

root=/dev/hdb2

initrd=/boot/initrd.img

append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi"

read-only

 

When I then run the command "lilo", I get the following output:

[root@localhost win_e]# lilo

Added linux *

Added linux-nonfb

Added windows

Fatal: Partition entry not found.

 

Would anyone have any suggestions?

 

Thanks for your time.

 

Erik

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Would anyone have any suggestions?

 

Be sure that the "root" partition of each image is the correct one; and run lilo with the "-v 5" flag to be much more verbose about errors. Another good idea is to use the "-t" flag while testing

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at vga parametter I know a specific number means a specific video mode.

where can I found those reference numbers?

 

[bvc@localhost bvc]$ slocate vga

/etc/mailcap.vga

/lib/modules/2.4.19-16/kernel/drivers/video/vga16fb.o

/lib/modules/2.4.19-16/kernel/drivers/video/fbcon-vga-planes.o

/lib/modules/2.4.19-16mdk/kernel/drivers/video/vga16fb.o.gz

/lib/modules/2.4.19-16mdk/kernel/drivers/video/fbcon-vga-planes.o.gz

/usr/bin/ppmqvga

/usr/lib/kbd/consoletrans/vga2iso.trans

/usr/src/linux-2.4.19-16mdk/drivers/video/sis/vgatypes.h

/usr/src/linux-2.4.19-16mdk/drivers/video/vga.h

/usr/src/linux-2.4.19-16mdk/drivers/video/vgacon.c

/usr/src/linux-2.4.19-16mdk/drivers/video/vga16fb.c

/usr/src/linux-2.4.19-16mdk/drivers/video/fbcon-vga.c

/usr/src/linux-2.4.19-16mdk/drivers/video/fbcon-vga-planes.c

/usr/src/linux-2.4.19-16mdk/Documentation/svga.txt

 

open gvim>:e /usr/src/linux-2.4.19-16mdk/Documentation/svga.txt

and

 Video Mode Selection Support 2.13

     (c) 1995--1999 Martin Mares, <mj@ucw.cz>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



1. Intro

~~~~~~~~

  This small document describes the "Video Mode Selection" feature which

allows the use of various special video modes supported by the video BIOS. Due

to usage of the BIOS, the selection is limited to boot time (before the

kernel decompression starts) and works only on 80X86 machines.



  **  Short intro for the impatient: Just use vga=ask for the first time,

  **  enter `scan' on the video mode prompt, pick the mode you want to use,

  **  remember its mode ID (the four-digit hexadecimal number) and then

  **  set the vga parameter to this number (converted to decimal first).



  The video mode to be used is selected by a kernel parameter which can be

specified in the kernel Makefile (the SVGA_MODE=... line) or by the "vga=..."

option of LILO (or some other boot loader you use) or by the "vidmode" utility

(present in standard Linux utility packages). You can use the following values

of this parameter:



  NORMAL_VGA - Standard 80x25 mode available on all display adapters.



  EXTENDED_VGA	- Standard 8-pixel font mode: 80x43 on EGA, 80x50 on VGA.



  ASK_VGA - Display a video mode menu upon startup (see below).

and there's a lot more :wink:

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The first thing I would try is to make boot floppies for Debian and BeOS. The next thing to understand is that at boot time, only the parttion from which lilo was originally installed(i.e. where lilo.conf is) is accessible and the info necassary for booting certainly your debian(vmliunuz and initrd.img) and probably your BeOS is on other inaccessible partitions.You have to copy that info to your Mandrake partiton and designate the right path to it in lilo.conf in order to boot to these operating systems. That's where the boot floppies come in; they contain all the info necessary to boot into these other operating systems

Here's a step by step procedure for setting up another boot entry for a second linux operating system using Mandrake's lilo and mcc but first edit out your entries for debian and BeOS in your lilo.conf:

 

1. As root create a directory in /boot called debian and copy the contents of your boot floppy for debian to /boot/debian;

2. Open mcc>Boot>Boot Config and tick the "Configure" button. When the drakboot window pops up tick "OK" which will bring up another drakboot popup window. Tick the "Add" button on this window then tick "Linux" on the next popu window that will come up;

3.Fill in the Label field as "Debian"; the image field as "/boot/debian/vmlinuz"; the initrd field as "/boot/debian/initrd.img"; in the root field fill in "/dev/hdx" where hdx is the root partition where debian is installed all without quotes. Leave the other fields blank for now but you may have to go back and edit the append line in lilo.conf later, for example, to provide for scsi emulation, ect. This should be enough to boot into debian;

4.Open a console and as root run lilo (# lilo);

5. Reboot and you should have a Debian entry in lilo and it should work.

 

The above works for all the linux distros I've tried but I don't know enough about BeOS to tell you what boot info has to be copied in order to boot it i.e. I don't know if it has an image and initrd file but I suspect it has something like it coming out of unix. I can tell you that you will probably have to copy that info to the Mandrake partition in order to get a working entry in Mandrake's lilo. The first place I would look is on the boot floppy if you are able to make one; all the necessary boot info has to be there.

 

Also, it is not absolutely necessary to have boot flopies; you can copy the image and initrd files for the other linux distro from its /boot but I like having the boot floppies and it eliminates any error in getting the right image and initrd files.

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I don't know anything about BeOS either, but the first thing I'd do is stop using the LI-nux LO-ader (lilo) which struggles even with linux, and try the universal bootloader GRUB, the G-rand U-nified B-ootloader. It handles them all. :wink: It's already on your ML install.

 

-uninstall lilo

lilo -U

-install grub

cd /boot/grub

sh install.sh

 

Read docs though! I did it once this way and it worked fine for me but I don't want to be the cause of more trouble for you :wink:

 

Then there's mdk's grub install;

/usr/sbin/grub-install

 

See:

man grub

and

man grub-install

 

 

google advanced with BeOS

google

 

Grub docs

http://www.mcc.ac.uk/grub/grub_toc.html

 

Multi HOWTO

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Multi-Disk-HOWTO.html

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Guest o1knives

Sorry for not responding quickly. School has had to take precidence this week :( . Anyway, I have gotten something that works, at least partially. I will probably try GRUB when I have a bit more time. Anyway, I thought I would post my re-made lilo.conf file in case it might help someone else at another time.

 

boot=/dev/hda

append="hdc=ide-scsi"

vga=normal

read-only

default=Mandrake

compact

prompt

nowarn

timeout=3000

 

image= /boot/vmlinuz

label=Mandrake

root=/dev/hdb2

initrd=/boot/initrd.img

append="quiet devfs=mount"

 

other= /dev/hda1

label=Windows

table=/dev/hda

 

other= /dev/hda5

label=BeOS

 

 

image= /boot/vmlinuz

root=/dev/hda10

label=Debian

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