hi all,

can linux boot without lilo or grub?

by using XOSL on the MBR , the C drive has windows and D has linux with lilo installed on the partition..how can we make it possible to boot directely to linux using XOSL or other boot loaders other thab grub or lilo.?

is there any comparison on the difference between lilo and grub and which is better ??

thanks in advance

XOSL is a good boot loader. i use it myself. Personally I like it better than lilo or grub because of eye candy and easy configurability.

Which brings me to your question. Once you have installed XOSL, you will reboot your PC. From there, you need to enter setup.

XOSL will display you partition scheme, and that is wehre you will tell it what partition to boot from for every given OS.

For example, I have NT 5 / QNX / and Linux. Linux is made up of multiple partitions, but it will display those.

At this point, I tell XOSL to boot partition 1 as NT, partition 2 as QNX, and partition 3, which is my " / "partiton in Linux, to boot.

Hope this helps ya!

Yeah, try 'loadlin'

vfs

Like any OS, Linux requires a boot loader of some kind -- it doesn't matter which one it is. XOSL and Loadlin both work fine as replacements for Grub or Linux.

thanks for the replys

but unfortunately it didn't work ..

when lilo is not installed and XOSL is installed .. it boots to a black page that says LILO!!!
XOSL was replaced withsystem commander .. same result

what i want is to boot directly to linux without showing lilo .. well it is my friend that wants that and i told him to install XOSL without lilo .. and what i said just now were his answers

Stephanie
did this help you?? without entering lilo??
do u know why this is happening to my friend? i mean the black page with the word LILO?

best regards

1) You can boot linux from a floppy (make sure floppy boot device comes before hard disk in BIOS)
2) Your description sounds as if you had removed lilo by erasing the program lilo and its files but not from the boot block of the partition.
lilo is a program which runs nuder linux.
LILO is a boot loader which does not need an operation system. You can erase it by copying the original image of the boot sector into its location.

But you don't need to do that (that's why I don't describe how to do that, because I don't want you to mess up your hard disk :-) ).
You have to tell XOSL the location of the linux kernel, but since I don't know XOSL, I don't know how to do that.

In Mandrake 8.2 your kernel is in your /boot directory.

thanks

but u don't have to point where is the kernel when using hte XOSL

I believe that you have to have a boot loader installed if you are going to use xosl or system commander or boot magic. You install lilo or grub in the boot sector of the root or boot partition.

If your friend wants to boot without seeing lilo, then edit the /etc/lilo.conf file and remove the prompt line and change the timeout line to timeout=0 That way it should boot to linux without lilo being seen.

The only ways that I know of that you can boot linux without lilo or grub is to use a kernel disk or loadlin. loadlin boots linux by loading a kernel.

The xosl website says you need lilo to use xosl.

sweet, I was wondering where to edit those lines at. I hate waiting 5 seconds for it to boot (unless I press Enter). Cool, thanks though.

I would stick with lilo or grub

You're welcome. But I made a mistake. It should be remove the prompt line and change the timeout line to timeout=0.

whew, good thing I am at work and was just gonna do it when I got home. I wonder what would happen if I remove the timeout line?

I looked around and I think it might cause it to not time out. I'm not sure how you would get out of that. Maybe pressing enter or pressing the shift key or the tab key might bring it out.