lilo's "-D" option

eur0dad · 09-07-2006, 01:58 AM

I don't have a machine that uses the lilo bootloader, but I need to write some code for it. I have a question about this -D option:

Quote:

-D label
Use the kernel with the given label, instead of the first one in the list, as the default kernel to boot.

If the lilo.conf file is missing the "default=foo" variable, does this option add it when you pass in a label? What if it doesn't find the label you specify? How does this work, really?

lurko · 09-07-2006, 09:02 PM

Ok I use LiLo, but I don't use the default=foo setting, I just put my intended default first in the list.

I used lilo -D to set Windows (the usual 3rd option) as default. It did not add a default=Windows line to my lilo.conf, and it did not re-arrange the order of my boot choices in lilo.conf either. My lilo.conf was not altered at all, the modified date is weeks ago. When listing the selections after running lilo, the order was the same:

Code:

oot@ganjanatrix:/etc# lilo -D Windows
Warning: Partition 2 on /dev/hda is not marked Active.
Added 2.6.17.11
Added Slackware10.2
Added Windows *

but windows was default, at the top of the list when I rebooted. So I think we can infer from this that it just feeds the choices from lilo.conf to lilo with the specified option first...

eur0dad · 09-08-2006, 03:36 PM

Thanks for your help!

lurko · 09-08-2006, 11:27 PM

no problem. my experience(thus far) is such that there are not a lot of questions on here that I can answer effectively (without promoting confusion!), glad I could be of help. I learned something in the process, so thanks for asking in the first place!