Beginner's question: How to run lilo in terminal?

[Doctor Praetorius]

I read the FAQ on boot loaders. It says after editing "lilo.conf" to run it in a terminal. How do I do that?

[paul]

as root

/sbin/lilo

[arctic]

Welcome aboard. :)

 

type

lilo -v

if you want a verbose display of what it is doing.

 

On Mandriva, the "/sbin/" path is usually not necessary for executing many commands. Other distros do require it however.

[scarecrow]

Or still better, replace LILO with Grub.

Grub does not need updating every time you update your kernel.

[SoulSe]

Or still better, replace LILO with Grub.

Grub does not need updating every time you update your kernel.

While the second half of this statement is true, there is nothing that makes Grub better than Lilo. It's personal preference all the way - go with whichever one you feel most comfortable with. If Lilo is working for you then there is no reason to replace it ;)

[Ixthusdan]

A general note:

I really think that we should not tell someone to use grub every time a question is asked about lilo. I have used both, and 90% of the issues that I read about are simple misunderstandings about either lilo or grub. I currently have lilo choosing between 5 different operating systems without any problems, and as always I have it installed on the mbr. Grub or lilo do the job; Perhaps if we just answer the questions, we'll do better service to the community.

 

BTW, lilo -v as root should be done every time you make a change. If your edits have an error, you will see it and can make corrections. Yes, I edit it manually; it's just easier for me.

[SoulSe]

A general note:

I really think that we should not tell someone to use grub every time a question is asked about lilo. I have used both, and 90% of the issues that I read about are simple misunderstandings about either lilo or grub. I currently have lilo choosing between 5 different operating systems without any problems, and as always I have it installed on the mbr. Grub or lilo do the job; Perhaps if we just answer the questions, we'll do better service to the community.

 

BTW, lilo -v as root should be done every time you make a change. If your edits have an error, you will see it and can make corrections. Yes, I edit it manually; it's just easier for me.

This is partially what I was trying to say above. The question was about lilo - so try to keep the answers that way.

[tyme]

Grub does not need updating every time you update your kernel.

The way most distributions are set up (appending a version to your compressed kernel file in /boot, i.e. vmlinuz-2.6.17-10) you would still need to update your menu.lst to add the new entry. You just don't have to rerun the grub installer.

[Doctor Praetorius]

Welcome aboard. :)

Thanks!

[Doctor Praetorius]

Okay, backing up a bit... I tried using Kate to edit lilo.conf and got the following error:

 

"Access denied. Could not write to /etc/lilo.conf.part."

 

So I tried using vi and vim and got this error:

 

"W10: Warning: Changing a readonly file"

 

 

As I said, I am completely new to Linux.

[SoulSe]

Okay, backing up a bit... I tried using Kate to edit lilo.conf and got the following error:

 

"Access denied. Could not write to /etc/lilo.conf.part."

 

So I tried using vi and vim and got this error:

 

"W10: Warning: Changing a readonly file"

 

 

As I said, I am completely new to Linux.

You are in your user acccount and need root privileges to edit config files. Do this:

 $ su
Password: [enter your root password]
#

Now try using vim or nano to edit that file ;)

 

$ means you have user privileges and # means root privileges (generally).

 

Oh, and NEVER log in as root to do these things, rather use the su command.

 

EDIT: Also, the file name needs to be lilo.conf for it to work. Make sure you are editing the right file, or rename that file.

[neddie]

Or, more simply, if you're used to using Kate:

su

enter root password

kate /etc/lilo.conf

edit file, save file, close kate

lilo -v

and then when you've finished,

exit

to exit root mode.

[Doctor Praetorius]

Another question, Linux is a fresh install. I don't recall setting a password for root. Would it be the same as the user account password... which happens to be blank.

[tyme]

Are you using Mandriva? Which version? Or are you using a different distribution (Ubuntu, Debian, etc.)?

 

With Mandriva, it should have asked you to give a password for root during the initial install.

[Doctor Praetorius]

Yes, I am using Mandriva 2007. I don't recall specifically being asked to enter a root password. There WERE a couple times when I was asked to enter a password and I entered blanks both times because I didn't want to bother with remembering passwords.