getting rid of grub for lilo

mutexe · 04-12-2010, 07:11 AM

Hiya,
I'm currently dual-booting win xp and ubuntu 8.04 on my desktop machine (dual-booting using grub). I'm now planning of getting rid of ubuntu and replacing with the slack 13.

There are a lot of tutorials online about dual boooting, and the slackbook also has a nice section on it as well but I'm not really sure what the best thing to do is given my current situation.

If I format my ubuntu partition and replace it with slackware i'll lose my grub config file (as it's in the ubuntu partition). Should i somehow "delete" grub, install slackware (and lilo), and then configure lilo to boot either my win xp or slack? If so how do i go about deleting or overwriting grub?

Sorry if these are dumb questions. Many thanks,

Tom

camorri · 04-12-2010, 09:42 AM

Assuming you format your current root partition, the grub config will be gone. Then you can install slack, with lilo. Just install lilo to the mbr, that will replace the mbr that now points to grub. The slack install should 'see' the XP install and create an entry for booting windbloze. If that fails for any reason, you can manually add an entry for windoze after you boot up slack.

Not a dumb question at all. Better to think ahead, than after the fact...

mutexe · 04-12-2010, 10:39 AM

A thousand thanks. I'll give this a go over the coming weekend.

Cheers again,

Tom

onebuck · 04-12-2010, 11:16 AM

Hi,

If you have sufficient space then install Slackware to a new partition. Then just do a chain load. That way you can have Xp, Ubuntu and Slackware.

mutexe · 04-12-2010, 04:02 PM

Oooooh didnt think of that. Thanks very much

Does this mean i wouldn't need to install lilo? i just need to add an entry to my grub menu config for slackware?

Many thanks again,

Tom

vigi · 04-12-2010, 04:46 PM

you have the choice when installing the new system (slackware) ... if you install it to the MBR, then it will become your new boot loader for all the systems and over write grub. If you install lilo to the slackware root partition... then you will have to manually edit grub to chainload lilo-slackware or the slackware kernel directly.

mutexe · 04-13-2010, 03:40 AM

Cheers all.

I have another machine that dual-boots slack and ubuntu, but i use grub on this. Think I wanna have a play with lilo as i've never used it before so i might go for the "overwriting grub" option.

Thanks again, it's really appreciated.

Tom

onebuck · 04-13-2010, 08:46 AM

Hi,

Nothing wrong with learning to use something new. You can keep your grub by saving your configurations. Then adding the boot for your Slackware. This way if you desire to revert then things will be a lot easier.

I prefer 'lilo' myself but whenever testing anything that is alien I will save my current configuration(s) but that is easy since my test bench systems can be reverted with ease. I never work experiments on my production equipment or systems. Sure tweaks may be made but even those have been tested elsewhere.

mutexe · 04-13-2010, 02:10 PM

When you say "Then adding the boot for your Slackware." is that the method where I should chose to install Lilo to my slack root partition thus keeping my grub in the mbr?

Thanks,

Tom

brianL · 04-13-2010, 02:42 PM

If you wanted lilo in the MBR, that would mean re-installing GRUB in Ubuntu's root, then adding just two lines to /etc/lilo.conf:

Code:

other = /dev/sda*
 label = Ubuntu

*'s whatever partition number, of course. Then run:

Code:

lilo

mutexe · 04-13-2010, 03:23 PM

Thank you all for your useful posts!

Tom

vigi · 04-14-2010, 02:01 AM

Does anyone have any experience with grub4dos as a boot loader... the website presents it as a silver bullet that will load all systems, usb, cd, iso and make your toast. Grub legacy that I stuck with because I can edit it manually, is being fazed out for grub2.. and I have not found it as stable as lilo. However lilo is not as fexible or as forgiving as grub legacy.
Hope this is not off the main subject here.

piratesmack · 06-21-2010, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vigi

Does anyone have any experience with grub4dos as a boot loader... the website presents it as a silver bullet that will load all systems, usb, cd, iso and make your toast. Grub legacy that I stuck with because I can edit it manually, is being fazed out for grub2.. and I have not found it as stable as lilo. However lilo is not as fexible or as forgiving as grub legacy.
Hope this is not off the main subject here.

I'm using Grub4dos, I like it a lot better than Grub2.

I wrote a SlackBuild for it here:
http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13.1/system/grub4dos/

To install to the MBR:

Code:

# bootlace.com /dev/sda
# mkdir -p /boot/grub
# cp -a /usr/share/grub4dos/grldr /boot/grub

There's also instructions to chainload from LILO on SlackBuilds (This is how I run it)

The menu.lst syntax is the same as Grub legacy

EDIT:

Something kind of annoying.

When you install Grub4dos to the MBR, it will move your old MBR to the second sector of your hard drive and on every boot it gives you 5 seconds to press the hotkey (spacebar) to load it.

If you don't want this, install with:

Code:

# bootlace.com --no-backup-mbr --time-out=0 /dev/sda