Boot Manager Options
 

I have a couple of options when booting up the laptop:


2.4.21-0.13
NT


It used to something like
linux
linux_something_or_other
failsafe
windows

I only need Linux (Text loader, not the fancy graphical one), and Windows XP. What are all these other options?

I've looked into Boot Manager (LILO) to try to solve these problems, and I guess the most helpful bit for you guys is the part under the Expert tab:


boot="/dev/hda"
lba32
prompt
timeout="100"
message=/boot/message
root=/dev/hda5

image="/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk"
label="Linux"
root="/dev/hda5"
read-only

image="/usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage"
label="Linux_Compiled"
root="/dev/hda5"
read-only
optional

other=/dev/hda1
label="NT"


I tried to change the meaningless boot options into some meaningful ones, but also wasn't sure which I could delete. I pressed Probe the first time I tried the Boot Manager but ended up with the screen I described at the start.

Also. how do I log in as the administrator? I created a user (myself), which is the only option to log in as, but not as the administrator.

Grrrr!

to get rid of the graphical lilo screen, comment out the line
message=/boot/message
i.e. place a # in front of the line. Also comment out the

image="/usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage"
label="Linux_Compiled"
root="/dev/hda5"
read-only
optional

You probably want to kep the failsafe options in case things go pearshaped.
After editing lilo.conf run lilo again:
lilo -v

You have to be root to edit lilo.conf and to run lilo.

Sorry. I'm such a newbie I have no idea what that means!

I don't mind the screen telling me which OS I want to log in as (this is very necessary in fact!), but rather I just want to change the names from


2.4.21-0.13
NT


to


Linux
Windows XP


And the Linux option loads with no graphics (ie: with the black screen, loads of incomprehensible msgs and the [OK] in green type thing).


And under the tab of OSs in Boot Manager, there are three choices, when at startup I only get the ones I've mentioned... Which one is which!

Thank you!

as for the becoming root part, type:
su
and then enter the root password. Alternatively, you can look into using sudo.

The name is given by the label. Change
label="NT"
to
label="XP"
or whatever it is that you want as a name (it cannot contain spaces). The same with linux. If you don't want to see some of the 'options' at startup, you have to get rid of the corresponding entries in lilo.conf. For instance, to not see Linux-Compiled, get rid of

image="/usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage"
label="Linux_Compiled"
root="/dev/hda5"
read-only
optional

You can either delete these lines or place a # in front of each line (in which case you can get them back easily if you want to). Did you actually compile a new kernel?

After making the changes to lilo.conf you must run lilo for the changes to take effect:
lilo -v
(as root)

Done! Thanks!