I already have a couple of
other distros which boot using lilo. So I definitely will
not be using grub and do not want hardy to mess with my lilo.
Ideally I would like to tell it to create a boot image for lilo
and perhaps the relevant initrd, but store them somewhere where it is harmless, say /tmp. Then I can get move these images and tell lilo where to look for them by entering slack and doing these manually.
Can I do that from the alrternative iso dvd?
I have a partition ready and ext3-formatted for hardy, so I will tell it to install there. I hope it will not mess with the other partitions.

I tried the alternative iso dvd on a different(empty system) and it worked.
I was surprised I was never prompted for a root password, yet when I boot the system, I cannot su(or login as root) because it requires root password, which I was never asked to set. Eventually I figured out that
I can login as user and use the graphical adduser equivalent to set the root password.

Not in my experience. (k)ubuntu just went ahead and installed grub, and that was that. My (mandrake) lilo was gone !!

Luckily I had a listing of the output of fdisk -l and mount from my previous distro, so I was able to get triple-booting sorted out once I had learnt a bit about grub. I can be quite resistant to change, and did not like moving from lilo, but grub is the way to go, and it is not difficult. There are lots of guides, and any post on LQ by Saikee is likely to be very helpful (and see the links in his sig!). Now, I wuoldn't want to go back to lilo.

Perhaps the most important thing is for you to make a careful PRINTED note of which partitions are what and any special kernel boot options your other distros need. Then you can construct /boot/grub/menu.lst if the 'buntu doesn't do this properly for you.

The installer will not mess with the "other partitions" if you choose manual partitioning. Here, your previously printed list of which partitions are which will be very useful. Be very careful that you are formatting and installing to the correct partitions.

The (k)ubuntus do not use the root password (although you can assign one).
To become root in the live distro just sudo -i (no password required) and you will get a root shell.
To become root in the installed version: sudo -i and give your password.
To set a password for root: sudo passwd root

It should be possible though. I mean I have the mbr=/dev/hdb1 (/dev/hda is the cd-rom). There I have a number of images, e.g. vmlinuz, vmlinuzslack12,
vmlinuzslack121,... and so on. Ubuntu is going to create /boot/grub
and overwrite the vmlinuz with its own. Or am I missing something?
It should not touch the oher images or /etc/lilo.conf in /dev/hdb2.
WHich means if I get rid of /boot/grub, have saved vmlinuz as vmlinuz_original, then I can edit /etc/lilo.conf, create an extra entry to point to the new vmlinuz(that will be ubuntu) and restore the old one.
Am I missing something here?

The whole idea is that if Ubuntu does not touch the other partitions, except for MBR, i.e. /dev/hdb1, then all I have to do is make a copy of /dev/hdb1 and restore it , adding the image of ubuntu. Is that wrong?

The images are not on the MBR. But they will be on a partition on /dev/hdb
When you install ubuntu, you'll install it to its own partition, which should NOT be be same partition that your other linux is installed on. Or you will loose your other linux
On its own root partition, (k)ubuntu will create / and /boot and /boot/grub and all the rest.
The MBR is not on /dev/hdb1 it is on /dev/hdb and it is the first 512 bytes of the disk. It also contains the partition table.

Just to make sure we both know what we are talking about please boot to your linux (slack I guess) and provide the output of the following commands:
Please also post your lilo.conf [in code tags to make it easier to read please]

Ubuntu can can co-exist with Windows. It can coexist with any Linux distro. Ubuntu doesn't use su. As the 1st user you are automatically in the admin group. When a password is requested in the GUI, use yours. On the command line preceed commands that rquire root access with sudo as in "sudo dpkg -i *". You will be prompted for your password. The system won't prompt for pass word if you've recently supplied it. The password session expires and you system doesn't have the exposure of being left in root access. It will be strange at first but you like I will adjust to the change.

Yes, he knows this and we know this.
This thread has "moved on"

You're missing plenty. Each distro has its own mountpoints - the fact that both have a /boot is irrelevant; they won't interfere with each other unless you happen to mount the wrong one.
With the Ubuntu alternate CD you can choose where to install the loader - in your case choose to install it to the root partition (that's Ubuntus root partition, not Slacks or anyone elses).
Given that the Ubuntu kernel image contains the kernel level as part of the name, continually copying it across to lilo.conf (and remembering to rerun lilo) soon becomes a PITA. Been there, done that.
Just chainload from lilo to Ubuntu - easier all round.

ok,
first I undestand that any new distro will get its own partition(been there, done that many times). But it looks like
I learned something: MBR is outside the partition table, i.e. even though I have partitioned /dev/hdb to /dev/hdb1. /dev/hdb2 and so on,
a small MBR still is unaffected by this, i.e. hdb exists and takes up the first 512 or so M of the physical disk. This is what any distro will
write to and what, if any, needs protection.
Since you tell me hardy alernate dvd allows me to install grub
in the Ubuntu root partition without touching mbr, there should be
no danger at all and I can go ahead, install ubuntu on /dev/sda1(see below), install grub on /dev/sda1(its own root partition) and then get the vmlinuz from there for lilo. (Do I also need initrds like Suse for Ubuntu -see the lilo)? If I am not missing something here, it looks that as long as I install grub in Ubuntus root partition there is no danger at all. Thanks.
Just for concreteness:


for concreteness, here is fdisk -l (hdb is mostly an older slack as is sda2(a new slack) hdc is an old Suse.
sdb2 was actually set for a USB portable disk, but it kind of gets confused if I also use a flash, so in this case it is the first device
it detects, I guess .I want sda1 for ubuntu, as you can see from the commented out lilo lines:

I am also posting lilo.conf.
This is the lilo.conf in /dev/hdb2/etc, not the one in /etc of the
new slack I am working from as we speak. In any case it is the one invoked and the one you can see from the commented lines I will be changing when Ubuntu is installed.

It looks like you are finally set to go.

It is always reassuring to have a "live distro" CD handy in case you make some small mistake, and end up with a system that won't boot anything - you can boot from the CD, mount the partition at fault, and fix the problem.

Good luck, & let us know how you get on.

I installed hardy on /dev/sda3, copied (from sda3) /boot/vmlinuz
to /boot/vmlinuzhardy and also (from sda3 )/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-rt, updated lilo with the lines:

# Linux bootable partition config ends
image = /boot/vmlinuzhardy
root = /dev/sda3
initrd= /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-rt
label = Hardy
# read-only # Partitions should be mounted read-only for checking


and ran of course lilo

I then reboot, choose Hardy from lilo, but dont get to the graphical
environment. Instead I get a message:
Check root=bootag cat /proc/cmdline or missing module, devices: cat /proc/modes ls /dev
ALERT: /dev/root does not exist
dropping to....

I then get (initrams) with some restricted shell

Any ideas what went wrong or how to fix it?

You are in a mess. Perhaps because you were too careful (!) and wouldn't let (k)ubuntu just install grub (which is pretty easy to fix up, compared to lilo.) Anyway...

On which disk partition is this ".... /boot/vmlinuzhardy and also (from sda3 )/boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-rt, updated lilo " copied to?

I gave up on lilo years ago, (grub is the way to go, trust me on this), but when I was multibooting with lilo I eventually found out that I needed to copy at least four files to /boot on the partition lilo was installed on (it can get insanely complicated with lilo, although at the time, it made sense some of the time, if that makes any sense [insert sore-head icon here]).

The required files were:
initrd.img.something
vmlinuz.something
config.something
System.Map.something

All the something's refer to the latest installation's filenames. lilo defaulted to referring to everything as vmlinuz, and sometimes there were symlinks. I soon learnt to specify things explicitly like boot=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic rather than boot=/boot/vmlinuz so I knew it was looking for exactly the right thing.

Otherwise I'd get a similar error to yours. But I was still able to boot to a previous, functioning installation to fix things up (Otherwise use a live CD, and mount the partitions as necessary, to make changes).

Nobody is going to be able to make any sense of your installations or required bootloader configuration without the output from the following. Boot from a Live CD, if necessary:

to list ALL your partitions on ALL your disks. Please also annotate this list to tell us what you think they have on them (Eg / (for which distro?) /boot (some people make a separate /boot partition - did you ever do this?) different /homes for different distros, swap, windows, the list goes on and on..)

Unless someone smarter comes along, I'll probably recommend that you reinstall ubuntu to whichever partition you installed it to before, but let it write to the MBR and install grub.

Once grub is installed and working, it is a relatively simple procedure to get it to recognise your other installations, and there is probably enough information in your previous postings of configurations to do this. lilo is outdated, and in my opinion, a nightmare, but I appreciate your reluctance to move on because I was there once.

Did you read Saikee's links that I pointed you to earlier? Much useful information there.

Don't panic. All is not yet lost.

I do NOT panic. Things are much better than I perhaps let you understand. Because I was too careful, my other(Slack) installations
are still FULLY FUNCTIONAL(in fact they were unaffected) and lilo boots me to anyone of these I tell it to.
/dev/hda is the CD
/dev/hdb2 is root for an old slack
/boot refers to this partition. It is there that I have put all vmlinuz es and all initrds, i.e. /boot/vmlinuzhardy and also /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-rt,

Now the main point of your reply is that I also need
config.something
System.Map.something

form Ubuntu copies to /boot. Great, except this does not figure out in lilo, not to mention that I have other such files there too, so how do I tell
lilo which one to get for system.Map or config.something?
Is this information in the vmlinuzhardy and initrd?


I am not sure I understand what you mean that lilo defaults to vmlinuz. Sure it does. But these are just files, so I copy them from whatever
distro produces them, rename them and lilo uses whatever filename I tell it to.

fdisk -l I posted it on 06-22, but that was before ubuntu. I'll repost

In brief I have:
Old slack: root on /dev/hdb2 (/boot is there)
old suse: root on /dev/hdc3
new slack: root on /dev/sda2
ubuntu: root on /dev/sda3
windows: what's that?http://linuxquestions.cachefly.net/i...s_lq/icon7.gif
Smile

I will consider your advice on dumping lilo, but I first want to test it on a real system with multiple installs and existing ones at that.
I also had a discussion with someone who had used both, but that was long time ago and his view was that in crash scenarios, grub is a nightmare to fix. Like I said, this was long time ago.
Anyway, maybe I should copy the grub from Ubuntu and add the other distros. What would I need to do then?

OK,OK Relax

Slack is still bootable - good.
You know what is on which partition - good.
So all this is fixable.

OldSlack is on /dev/hdb2 and you have told me /boot is there, so that is the partition where the lilo.conf we need to modify will be.

So you need to copy (Not move) all those four .something files from the /boot directory of your ubuntu install ( /dev/sda3 I think) to the /boot directory on /dev/hdb2
They will not overwrite other files because the kernel numbers will be different.

Now boot to Slack on /dev/hdb2
Edit /etc/lilo.conf and add an entry for ubuntu:
Eg something like this:
Re-run /sbin/lilo so things are updated.
Reboot.
Choose Ubuntu from the list
You should be there

That's what I did(except I had a read-only instead of the append, as I did
for all other distros). When I put this last, it was apparently trying to boot another root(/dev/hdb3). When I put it 3rd(before Suse) it gets to
Booting Hardy............
and then gives a blank screen and just hangs there.