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Old 07-21-2010, 06:10 AM   #16
Aquarius_Girl
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May be saikee also said the same thing, but I couldn't understand his language.

Can someone point out some good *tutorials* w.r.t MBR, Grub, Lilo, and contents of menu.lst ?
 
Old 07-21-2010, 06:21 AM   #17
brianL
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Whenever I've wanted to know anything about dual/multi-booting I go here:

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144294

saikee is the expert on this subject.
 
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Old 07-21-2010, 06:32 AM   #18
saikee
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OK let me explain it as follow:

Both Grub (Grub1 & Grub2) and Lilo can boot a Linux directly by going into a partition to find the kernel.

If either of these boot loaders is asked to boot an operating system that it cannot read, as both Grub1 and Lilo cannot read a ntfs partition of a MS Windows but Grub2 can, then the standard procedure is to the boot loader of that system. As an example when Grub boots a Xp it does so only by loading Xp's boot loader NTLDR into the memory and then bugger off itself. It is always the NTLDR that boots the Xp. Sameething if Grub is asked to boot a Vista or Win7 and it is bootmgr.exe, which is the common boot loader of Vista and Win7, that actually fires up the MS Windows. Grub therefore boots every MS Windows "indirectly".

The same trick can be used by Grub1 to boot a Lilo or a Grub2. Indeed if you install a Linux that has Ext4 and Grub2 you are better off using Grub1 to boot Grub2 indirectly because a standard Grub1 cannot read a Ext4 filing system and unable to understand Grub2 syntax.

Thus my suggestion is to let Slackware install Lilo in its root partition then Grub1 can be used to fire it up.

Any operating system can be chainloaded by Grub1 (or Grub2 or Lilo) if the boot loader has been replicated in its root partition.

Any Linux can by put its boot loader in more than one location

grub-install /dev/sda ----> in MBR of disk sda
grub-install /dev/sda2 ---> in root partition of sda1
grub-intsall /dev/fd0 ----> in a floppy

Lilo can do exactly the same things but is less forgiving. For example the /etc/lilo.conf cannot be amended to boot a empty partition because Lilo checks it before compiling the configuration file and will report error.

Last edited by saikee; 07-22-2010 at 06:39 AM.
 
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Old 07-21-2010, 06:34 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brianL View Post
Whenever I've wanted to know anything about dual/multi-booting I go here:

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144294

saikee is the expert on this subject.
Yes, I heard Pixel saying in some other thread that saikee is an expert in this field, but I don't know why I am finding his language difficult for my small mind.
 
Old 07-21-2010, 11:59 PM   #20
basheer
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Quote:
Originally Posted by anishakaul View Post
Thanks,

What I cannot do with Lilo ? Modifying menu.lst as in above post ? Then what is supposed to be done in case Slack in installed first ?
If slack is installed first, then it is very easy. You just have to install Opensuse and then install grub in the MBR. The installer will take care of including slack in the grub bootloader.
 
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Old 07-22-2010, 02:37 AM   #21
saikee
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The order of installations is immaterial because every boot loader can be re-configured as I explained in Post #18.

Actually the matter is very simple. If a user installs say 5 operating systems, some of which can be MS Windows or Unix systems, then this user has 5 boot loaders available and everyone can be told to take control of the MBR and boot the remaining 4 systems by a mixture of direct and indirect methods.

The bottom line is every operating system can be booted indirectly. For Grub the command is "chainloader +1" and for Lilo it is "other=/dev/sdax".

The only necessary condition that an operating system can be booted indirectly by a boot loader other than its own is by installing (or replicating or restoring) its own boot loader inside the root partition.

I don't consider myself an expert. It is just most Linux users following the way the installer arranges a Linux booting configuration and are reluctant to change even for something dead simple.

Last edited by saikee; 07-22-2010 at 02:46 AM.
 
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Old 07-22-2010, 03:27 AM   #22
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saikee,

I shall read your post number 18 in detail and then thank you.

One question:
If I ask questions like "what is the difference between "/boot and /" while creating partitions", (in this thread) will it be considered "trolling" or "derailing the thread" ?

Last edited by Aquarius_Girl; 07-22-2010 at 03:30 AM.
 
  


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