[SOLVED] Questions about lilo,etc

Miter_J · 01-10-2011, 12:26 PM

My thread "Can't add Ubuntu into lilo.conf" was merged with this one.
That problem has been solved, thanks to you guys~

As I solved that problem, I got several more questions:
When applying the changes by run "lilo", there's a warning about "large-memory". How come and how to solve?
When loading into lilo, there's a capital character "U" in front of "Ubuntu". At the same time, there's nothing in front of Slackware or Windows. I wonder why...
And, now that lilo read the booting info from slackware, if sometimes slackware get collapsed, could I still be able to access lilo? If I can access lilo, can I still boot into the other OSes?

Ramurd · 01-11-2011, 04:53 AM

Quote:

When applying the changes by run "lilo", there's a warning about "large-memory". How come and how to solve?

Not sure if I understand this question correct; but I assume that Lilo sees that your initrd is too big and therefore needs the "large-memory" option (and assuming it enables this automatically and warns you about this.) You could put the "large-memory" option in your lilo.conf and see if this removes the warning.

Quote:

When loading into lilo, there's a capital character "U" in front of "Ubuntu". At the same time, there's nothing in front of Slackware or Windows. I wonder why...

I have no idea either, sorry.

Quote:

And, now that lilo read the booting info from slackware, if sometimes slackware get collapsed, could I still be able to access lilo? If I can access lilo, can I still boot into the other OSes?

Unlike grub, lilo is entirely in your MBR; therefore, if Slackware is gone kaput lilo itself is not touched. You can still fire up your other os-es. However, you will need your lilo.conf to rewrite your MBR. Keep your lilo.conf stored on an alternate location as well, just in case you accidentally format your partition that contains your lilo.conf. Apart from that you can always boot up with a bootable disk with options like root=/dev/sda1 (or so) and access your disks again.

Hope this answers your questions.

DonnieP · 01-11-2011, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miter_J

When loading into lilo, there's a capital character "U" in front of "Ubuntu". At the same time, there's nothing in front of Slackware or Windows. I wonder why...

Edit /etc/lilo.conf to change this.

Miter_J · 01-11-2011, 06:01 AM

Thx Ramurd & DonnieP. I kind of understand something now.

onebuck · 01-11-2011, 10:29 AM

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!
Since you haven't provided the complete error message. If your speaking about 'large-memory' relative to your '/etc/lilo.conf' then;

Quote:

ecerpt from 'man lilo.conf';
large-memory
Normally any initial ramdisk (initrd) loaded with a kernel is loaded as high in memory as possible, but
never above 15Mb. This is due to a BIOS limitation on older systems. On newer systems, this option
enables using memory above 15Mb (up to a kernel imposed limit, around 768Mb) for passing the initrd to
the kernel. The presence of this option merely indicates that your system does not have the old BIOS
limitation.

This switch (or its abscence) is not passed to the kernel, and does not in any way affect the amount of
physical memory which it will use. (See the kernel documentation for the kernel command line parameter
"mem=" for limiting the memory used by the kernel.)

'man command' is your friend!

I suggest that you look at 'How to Ask Questions the Smart Way' so in the future your queries provide information that will aid us in diagnosis of the problem/query.

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Slackware® Essentials 
Slackware® Basics 
Linux Documentation Project
 Rute Tutorial & Exposition 
Linux Command Guide 
Bash Reference Manual
 Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide 
Linux Newbie Admin Guide
 LinuxSelfHelp 
Getting Started with Linux

  The above links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!