is it worth booting slack with Grub?
 

hi guys,

i know lilo is old and less functional than grub
slackware uses lilo? is this a problem?
should i bother using grub to load slackware? is it something i should know how to do? or is it really not a big deal.

just curious...

There's no problem to use lilo as long as it works in your context. Only bother to use another boot loader or boot manager if you need to, for instance because your machine has an EFI firmware, not a BIOS one, or you need more flexibility.

GRUB is far more flexible & convenient - for example you don't have to update its executable code(installed to MBR or partition) each time after you change something in your boot config - it just works. Also it has more powerful command line - you could even access filesystems at GRUB prompt. Why slackware still uses lilo - I don't know, IMHO it's obsolete for many years already. But if you're not annoyed with the lilo inconvenience then it's not a problem.

Lilo does what it is supposed to do - at the most important part of the start up process, it does not make itself vulnerable as Grub does - see all the questions regarding grub in various fora.

As to having to run lilo if you change/move the kernel etc - this is good. Lilo looks at the absolute addresses - if anyone or thing has been messing with the kernel, it won't work - which is good.

After changes to kernel etc., running lilo is trivial (3 seconds?) and re-assuring.

It's a classic - do one job and do it well - and when you're booting, you do want to keep it simple :)

Thanks for your timely replies...

If you running slackware in a production environment do you always install grub then...would most slackware production systems use grub...
i mean will a time come where you absolutely have to use Grub? should i practice setting up slack to use it then...

I agree, its like a natural 'commit' point.

grub2 with all its self configuring shell scripts just looks like a nightmare to me. Legacy grub wasn't as bad, but I still prefer the simplicity of lilo.

I disagree :) Forget to run lilo after new custom kernel build(or initrd rebuild, etc) and ... new kernel is unbootable for no reason (and no way to correct it at boot prompt if you don't have a backup kernel image in place). Such 'simplicity' is a bit too much(maybe OK back in 1994, but in 2014...). BTW in case of kernel package update lilo is not run for you by the package management utility AFAIR?

Personally I would use Lilo over grub2 any day, I preferred Grub legacy over Lilo but find Grub2 needlessly complex for very little benefit.

You're undoubtedly going to get differing reports on this. Both exist because there are people who like both. Just like KDE, xfce, Gnome, etc. There isn't a one-package-fits-all program out there. I've stuck with lilo because of the simplicity. It's part of the Slackware installer, I'm familiar with the config file, and I am familiar with the booting process it provides.

As far as using one or the other on a production environment with Slackware. It doesn't matter. Both boot the machine. I'd choose the one you're more familiar with, since you'll be the one that needs to troubleshoot any failures.

And no, I don't believe, at least any time soon, that grub would completely displace lilo. The basic lilo most use doesn't support UEFI firmware (the replacement to the computer's BIOS), but elilo, which is included with Slack does support it.

No, there's a reason. ;)

If you don't run /sbin/lilo then the new one won't be bootable, but the old one will be (unless its sectors on disk have been overwitten - in which case I have to ask what you were thinking removing the old one before you know the new one even works? Also, /sbin/lilo will warn you about any missing files or misconfiguration when you run it, not leave you to find out about them after you reboot, when its too late. That sounds exactly like a 'commit' to me.

If you do a "make install" in the linux kernel source directory, It'll even manage all this stuff for you by maintaining /boot/vmlinuz and /boot/vmlinuz.old *AND* re-running /sbin/lilo for you.

There are some weaknesses with the way slackware packages the kernel, that's certainly true, which is why experienced slackers will recommend that you black-list the kernel packages in you slackpkg, and always do the updates manually.

BTW, I keep this on the end of my lilo.conf, which acts as a perfect recovery system should something bad happen:
I guess its kind of like a MS Windows recovery partition, only better.

If you prefer grub, then that's fine. Each to his own. But there's nothing wrong with lilo, if you manage it correctly.

In most GRUB-based distributions, it is necessary to run 'update-grub' after making such changes. In Fedora* this is not necessary but your original configuration will be automatically overwritten. I personally don't see much advantage to editing grub.cfg over lilo.conf when both require an additional command to commit the changes.

I'm not opposed to some degree of complexity, but using a 35MB package to load a 4MB kernel seems rather extreme.


* I may be wrong about this. Fedora seems to change its approach to GRUB every other release.

If you forget to run "update-grub", you can still boot your system without a rescue disk.

You can't do that with lilo, if you forgot to re-run lilo after changing the kernel. Which I have done, too many times to count; that's why most of my machines have grub/grub2 on them.

You usually have more than one kernel in /boot. You should configure your lilo menu to show at least two - one backup, such as "huge". You should always be able to boot - even if you forget to run lilo.

If I did everything perfectly, I wouldn't have any problems.

I don't, so I do. Grub/grub2 lets me recover, lilo doesn't.

If you're happy with lilo, fine.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound snarky or anything but if someone forgets to run lilo or upgrade-grub after boot, do they not deserve to learn the hard way to "do things right the first time". Just saying....