lilo.conf for Mandrake and Slack

Andrew Benton · 11-27-2003, 09:20 AM

Hello. I've been using Mandrake 9.1 for a few months now and it's starting to feel comfortable so I've decided to stretch myself some more and try some different distros, so I got a copy of the Slackware 9.1 CD's. Windows has 1 partition, /dev/hda1, Mandrake has 3 /dev/hda5, 6 and 8 and there is a Linux swap partition /dev/hda7. I've just run the Slackware CD's, I used cfdisk to create a 10Gb partition, /dev/hda9, on which I installed Slack. I chose the default Kernal and the default option for Lilo which was to install it on the root partition. It all seemed to go fine. I rebooted and at the Lilo screen I still have the same choices I had before, Windows or Mandrake. The Mandrake Lilo is installed on the MBR (Master Boot Record?).
So the question I'm leading up to is, what should I add to the Mandrake /etc/lilo.conf to be able to boot into Slack? At the moment it looks like this

Code:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/uk.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hda6
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
vga=788
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda

I should say the first time I tried to install Slack I chose to put Lilo on the MBR and when I tried to boot it gave some errors about "initrd... modules failed to load" or some such and didn't boot into Gnome, I got the command prompt and could login as root but I had no idea what to do, other than use the Mandrake 9.1 CD to put lilo back the way it was. I didn't note the name of the Kernal image. If it's needed I could go round the setup process again. Thanks for taking the time to read this

LinuxLala · 11-27-2003, 09:34 AM

I have had some luck with lilo, so i wud suggest u to do these:

boot=/dev/...
image=/boot/vmlinuz ...
label=""
root=/dev/...
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=""

These are the specs of your slack. Check for the vmlinuz file of slack and modify mandrake's lilo accordingly.

jazzyjazz · 11-27-2003, 11:49 AM

Have you tried just to add at the end of you lilo config :

image = /boot/...
root = /dev/hda9
label = Slack
read-only

dont forget to run /sbin/lilo

Skyline · 11-27-2003, 04:46 PM

Quote:

So the question I'm leading up to is, what should I add to the Mandrake /etc/lilo.conf to be able to boot into Slack? At the moment it looks like this

You'll need to first:

Create a mount point in Mandrake to hold Slack's Root partition (LILO requires that all kernels be locally mounted before creating an updated map file)

mkdir /mnt/slackware

Mount Slacks Root partition

mount -t ext3 -o ro /dev/hda9 /mnt/slackware

(supposing you've used ext3 for Slack's Root partition)

Then open lilo.conf and add

Code:

image=/mnt/slackware/boot/vmlinuz
	label="Slackware9.1"
	root=/dev/hda9
	append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=off quiet"
	read-only

Once you've made the changes then save lilo.conf

and then type

/sbin/lilo

to make the changes take effect:

Andrew Benton · 11-28-2003, 03:51 PM

Thanks for the help people. The first two suggestions brought me back to my old friend Colonel Panic and the last one, mounting the slack partition in Mandrake - I couldn't do that without adding it to /etc/fstab and experience has told me that adding partitions I'm not sure about to fstab leads to superblock problems when I reboot which can only be resolved by reinstalling Mandrake. I don't want to do that so I ran the Slack CD's again and this time I made a boot floppy and it gets me as far as when I put Lilo on the MBR. I get insmod errors about IP protocols (I think that's because I didn't setup my internet connection during the install) and then the command prompt.
So my question now is, how do I get to a Gnome desktop? What commands do I need to type in to get things going? Is this normal for Slack?