Installing lilo on slackware 9.0
 

Hi.

I just installed SW 9.0. At the config part of the setup it asked me if I wanted to install lilo. I wanted to intall it on a floppy and not on the hardrive.
It got to a point where It said it couldnt install lilo. SO I chose to SKIP installing it.
Now I have the system installed but I cant boot into it. I have the image install CD and a boot disk.
I want to install lilo so that when I turn my comp on I have the choice to boot into it. If I dont want to boot to SW and instead want to boot to my winXP then I just leave the floppy disk out.

Could someone help.

Boot into slackware using the cd. So at the prompt to install what
kernel do, bare.i noinit ro bleh (it shows the example in the screen
so I suggest you read it). After you are booted into your slackware
partition, mount your slackware cdrom and do (as root)

"installpkg /mount/point/slackware/a/lilo-22.4.1-i386-2.tgz"

After it finishes installing lilo, type "liloconfig" in console and
voila, set it up the way you want it and after do a /sbin/lilo
reboot.

I would suggest you read up about dual-booting OR search
these forums for it because I know your next question will be
"Ok, lilo is installed but I have no option to get to windows XP".
And I know that the topic has been covered many a times.

-vexer

Actually you are almost correct.
I eventually got myslef back into the lilo congif in the install program. I went throught the process and now it only shows the winXP as a choice but no slackware.

Edit: And where in your suggestion does it say how to install it onto the floppy drive.

It will give you some menu options straight off the ISO CD. One of them is to add a linux partition and the other a dos partition. Well it looks like you may have told it to do the dos but not the linux. Although I don't think this is really what you are asking for anyway. I have no idea how to boot off a floopy drive. Mine is still in my PC, but it is broken. It should have asked you to make a linux boot disk at one point durring the Slackware Linux install.

I actually did do the linux partition first, then the windows partition.
I think I know whre I messed up though. At the config section when it asks you to choose a kernel to make it boot properly I chose skip. I thought that meant that it would just load the default kernel from the cd. I guess skipping it menas it doesnt install one at all.
Only problem is imnot sure which kernel from the cd to tell it to load.

Boot the slackware kernel from the CD. At the command prompt, make a quick dumb mount point. Then mount your harddrive

mkdir /mnt/linux
mount /dev/hdaXY (where you installed) /mnt/linux
cd mnt
cd linux

Then edit your lilo.conf
pico /etc/lilo.conf


Make a block in front of or behind your windows config and add this in:

image=/boot/vmlinuz
root=/dev/hdaXY
label=Slack
read-only


This will load your default kernel and slack should run

Well I got the system and Lilo installed proerly. I get to the section where it asks me which OS i want to boot, I choose linus , I see the beginning of the loading and thn I get nothing, blank screen and no action. Just hangs. :confused:

Post your lilo.conf please

hmm.. I think I had a BSOD (blank screen of death) like that once and it was because I had a VESA framebuffer setting in lilo.conf such as: vga=785 and that resolution/number of colors was not supported. If you have one of those, you might want to comment it out or set to a different number.

How do I do that? You need to spell it out like im a 5 year old.
But hold the lolipops.
:D

If you are still unable to boot into slackware from lilo, boot from your slackware cd. Then once you get to a command prompt, here are the instructions:


mkdir /mnt/linux
mount /dev/hdaX /mnt/linux
cd /mnt/linux
cd etc
vi lilo.conf


And you will be looking at your lilo.conf, it probably won't be easy for you at that point to get to a browser that'd let you post it, so you might need to write it down for us.


And for all the framebuffer commented lines you can just leave those out and tell us what you vga looks like, and what your linux block of the lilo.conf file looks like. Those are the most important.

I will do that.

Thank you .

Be back soon.

Ok I follwed the commands exactly and this is what showed up on my screen
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-( flashing cursor)
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"lilo.cfg" line 1 of 1--100%--
___________________________________________________

I have my lilo.cfg installed on a floppy. Do I have to susstitute the drive I mount or use another command to view the floppy(fd0) ?
:confused:

Oh, if you installed LILO on a floppy then yes we will need to see the lilo.conf from there, because that's where it's booting from of course!

So how would what you wrote be different now.
Thanks for your patience.
In other words what commands would I use.

:newbie: