lilo woes
 

Problem is after installing lilo to MBR, instead of getting my nice bootmenu, I get this (after BIOS checks boot options, gets to IDE0, then)

LILO 22.2 _

That's it. After it times out it will boot winxp, the default OS. I changed the timeout value to test this.

I have WinXP on /dev/hda1 and Slack8.1 on /dev/hdb1, both of these drives are 20GB 5400 ATA100 drives.

After installing using expert mode liloconfig, I manually changed the timeout to 150 in lilo.conf, then ran /sbin/lilo so the changes would be picked up.

lilo.conf looks like this :

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hda
#compact # faster, but won't work on all systems.
delay = 150
# Normal VGA console
vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
# vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769
# ramdisk = 0 # paranoia setting
# End LILO global section
# DOS bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hda1
label = WinXP
table = /dev/hda
# DOS bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdb1
label = Slack
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends

well of course you'll have that, as there's nothing to tell lilo what you want it to display, so you get the default one. "pretty" menus are prety pointless anyway imho, but you'll need something like...

message=/boot/lilo-graphic/message

presumably the whole thing does still work?

When I say nice menu, I mean, a menu would be nice. All I get is :

LILO 22.2 _

I wasn't prepared for this, since I have installed the same version of lilo at work, using the same methods, and it yields a simple bootmenu. My chap here at home doesn't respond to input at all (thankfully it will boot at timeout).

So no, the whole thing does not really work.

Thanks for such a quick reply BTW :)

well that's a prompt, iirc, press tab and you will get the menu up, you can tell from the config file that your two options are "WinXP" and "Slack" anyway...

All fixed and working
 

A few important globals were missing there. What a shocker !

As an aside, the :

LILO 22.2 _

was not any sort of prompt; although "prompt" in the lilo.conf does help a bit ;)

i was going to mention prompt, but then you implied that the timeout was working, and that only works with the prompt anyway. and also what you had looked an awful lot like a prompt anyway. for the record, mt onf file looks like...

Strange one, oh well
 

The timeout was working, in a roundabout sort of way. Although my timer was actually "delay" ... it would count down the delay then boot WinXP. In fact for some reason I got a really wierd lilo.conf ... I must have made some mistake somewhere.

Now I have prompt and timeout, and all is well. I used expert install at work (simple install didn't work there because of a fat12 partition on /dev/hda1. I think symantic ghost put that there) and being used to it, tried the same here. The lilo.conf turned out to be very different even using the same distro.

The boxes at work had lilo installed during setup, my box here months later using liloconfig (which I have no doubt is the very same called by setup). Most perplexing. I tried a simple install and found here at home everything was fine; I edited the timeout and it's exactly as I want.

Ah well it was alright on the night. Thanks for your support AK.

PS : I see your problem, it's all them # to the left of your windows entry (whoops !! J/K)