Using LiLo to multiboot more than one distro
 

After losing my whole sunday with trying and trying I decided to post my problem here:

I have three OS's installed now on my harddrive (I have only one):
hda1: Windows Server 2003 ::NTFS
hda2: LindowsOS 3.0 ::ReiserFS
hda3: SuSE 8.2 ::ReiserFS
(hda3: swap ::LinuxSwap)

I had Windows & MDK installed first, and after trying several distro's (I wanted something else after a long time using MDK) I ended up with LindowsOS 3.0 (despite criticism I don't think there's anything wrong with Lindows). Lindows uses Lilo as boot manager and there were no boot problems at all, all went okay. But I wanted a more configurable Linux, but I'm not really a die-hard, so I wanted something not too Debian :D (I did try Debian though).

Today, I used SuSE's free FTP install. The installation went fine, but Lindows wasn't listed in the SuSE's Grub boot menu.
So, I decided to reinstall Lindows, to see wether Lilo would recognize SuSE. (Ofcourse) It didn't.

So my question now is (I know, I know, ill try to be to-the-point next time ;) ): How should I configure Lilo.conf in order for it to boot into Suse?

If you need more info, let me know,

Thnx in advance.

add. info
 

Here's some additional info, hopefully putting some logic into it all:

1. A reinstall of SuSE (and put Grub in hda3, then chainload into SuSE) isn't really an option, since the FTP install took me more than four hours. Not really looking forward to doing that again :eek:
2. I also cannot get into SuSE. Their rescue-disk doesn't seem to work. I can mount the hda3 partition though, in Lindows, maybe that's a help?
3. I know, I should've installed SuSE's grub into hda3 anyway. I'm only human okay? (and :newbie: probably ;) )

Hi Slakje

Are you going to be using Lindows Lilo bootloader to try and boot all 3?

I'm just guessing so I'm not sure how helpful it will be - but I think you'll need to log on as Root in Lindows and mount the SUSE partition - this will then enable you to go in to Lindows's Lilo.conf file and create a new entry for the SUSE kernel image, initialisation file and root partition - the entires in Lilo for the various Linux distributions are similar, you just need the exact kernel name,etc for SUSE kernel and init file and also to point to the SUSE root partiton - hopefully if you've mounted the SUSE patition succesfully you should be able to get to its boot directory and get the exact filenames you'll need for putting into Lindows Lilo.conf.

When I dual booted Red Hat 9 and Mandrake 9.1 on the same hard drive I created 2 dummy directories in Mandrake for mounting Red HATS boot and root directories - I then could just copy Red Hat's lilo entries inot Mandrakes lilo.conf file - it was handy doing it this way because I could copy the exact "syntax" for Red Hat

If you manage to edit Lindows Lilo.conf succesfully remember to go to a console and type /sbin/lilo to create a new entry for SUSE in the Lilo boot menu when you next boot up.

what I do is to create one /boot partition. I guess you have already used up all space though.

anyway consider this

create a partition for /boot, format and mount it somewhere other than /boot.
mount the other distros somewhere else.
copy each distros /boot files in the small /boot partition.
setup the /etc/lilo.conf to have all images from all systems and save it to all distros /etc folder
update all of the distros /etc/fstab files to mount the partition to boot (setup boot options to noauto, you can mount it manually if needed)

be sure the filesystem is supported by all distros

or

simply update the lilo.conf file to contain all distros images and run lilo


update all distros lilo.conf files and you can run lilo from whatever distro you want . This will show it's boot screen as well, so you can run one until you decide to change then boot into the other and run lilo

...
 

Okay...

I was wondering already why, after I edited my lilo.conf to point to suse's kernel etc., it didn't found them.

I should've just mounted hda3 and point towards the mount point for hda3.

Seems kinda obvious now...:p

Thanks!

FYI, Grub is much more suitable for handling this kind of setup. Whilst you start off thinking that "(hd1,3)/vmlinuz" is much more confusing that lilo's more familiar "/boot/vmlinuz" the grub way means you don't need to mount any partitions and such like, so it's a lot more scalable

if nothing works....just do a ftp install...BUT CHOOSE UPDATE....(and dont select any new packages) it will take only 3-10 minutes to load the initial program into RAM and then it will load the boot-loader...thats it..you can edit the boot-loader.