I am running Mandrake 9.0 and KDE 3.1. I have a dual boot computer which boots either Windows 98 or Linux. While in Linux, I would like to be able to reboot the computer into Windows from the command prompt. I am able to do this from KDE by Logging off and then at the log in screen I can select reboot and pick the image I want to boot into. The available images I can boot to are listed in /etc/lilo.conf. When I'm done in Windows, I can simply reboot and my default image will load which happens to be linux.

I know I can edit /etc/lilo.conf and set the default image to be Windows, run lilo, and then reboot which will boot into Windows but then when I reboot Windows the default image is still Windows but I want the default to remain linux.

Can this be done from the command line?

Sure , just write the name of the kernel you want to load and hit enter.

Works fine 4 me

Thanks for the quick response. So you are saying all I have to do is from the command line type the kernel name? That doesn't make sense because I could name a kernel "sendmail" and linux would think I'm trying to run the sendmail program.

I would assume it would have to be something like "reboot kernel_name" but I'm not sure.

Sure it make sense.

If you have a kernel named Sendmail you can start it by typing Sendmail.

The mailserver sendmail will not start beacuse there is now way that Lilo can know that sendmail is a program

I just tried this and it didn't work. I was sitting at a command prompt in linux (not at the lilo prompt) and I typed the name of the image I wanted to change to and it said "Command not found". I even tried "reboot kernel_name" and I got the following:
"reboot [-n] [-w] [-d] [-f] [-i] [-p]"
I then tried:
"shutdown -rn now kernel_name" and the comptuer rebooted but did not boot to the new "kernel_name"

When I'm trying to reboot, I'm not at the lilo prompt or else just typing the name of the kernel would work.

Well, I tought you wanted to select the kernel from the Lilo prompt :-)

You can't do this from the console.

Sorry for the missunderstanding

I would assume that there is a way to do it or else it wouldn't work from the login promt for KDE. Thanks for helping and for your suggestions.

dont know how to do this and am not on linux right know to tell you but you might try reading the man pages of shutdown.

I have read the man pages for "shutdown", "reboot", and the "init" scripts and I didn't see anything about rebooting to a different image. Thanks for the suggestion.