How do I remove lilo from root partition?

ZorlacBabelfish · 01-11-2005, 05:56 PM

I recently installed Windows XP pro, Fedora core 1, Slackware 10.0 and Mandrake 10.0. The linux os's reside on their own partions along with a FAT32 partition for backups.Windows XP resides on it's own partition on hda. All others are on hdb. I have the grub bootloader installed on the mbr and everything boots fine, except when I select the entries for slackware or mandrake lilo comes into the picture with another choice to boot either windows or the respective os. This seems rather redundant to me and I would like to get rid if lilo. I've read up on this all day and the only solutions I've seen for removing lilo are to remove it from the mbr (which in my case doesn't apply because it's installed at root) or removing the entire partition on which it resides which seems a bit counter productive since I don't want to lose my Slackware or my Mandrake. Could someone please help?!
here is my partition scheme if it matters
hda=winxp
hdb1 swap
hdb2 extended
hdb5 Slackware
hdb6 Mandrake
hdb7 Fedora
hdb8 Fat32

Andrew Benton · 01-11-2005, 06:10 PM

If grub is on the MBR of /dev/hda then does that mean lilo is on the MBR of /dev/hdb? If so, you don't need to remove it, to boot Slack and Mandrake with Grub you just need to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst
Post your current menu.lst and we'll make suggestions

ZorlacBabelfish · 01-12-2005, 09:08 AM

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd1,6)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb7
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=2
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,6)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2199.nptl)
root (hd1,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2199.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi rhgb
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.22-1.2199.nptl.img
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2115.nptl)
root (hd1,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi rhgb
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.img
title WindowsXP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
title Mandrake 10.0
rootnoverify (hd1,5)
chainloader +1
title Slackware 10.0
rootnoverify (hd1,4)
chainloader +1
lilo is installed at the respective root partitions of Slackware and Mandrake. Grub seems to work fine. It's when I select either Slackware or Mandrake from the grub menu I get a lilo menu.

Andrew Benton · 01-12-2005, 03:15 PM

Well for Mandrake try something like

Code:

title Mandrake
kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb6 devfs=nomount acpi=ht splash=silent
initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd.img

I'm not so sure about Slack as I've hacked my install about quite a bit and I can't remember what the original Slack kernel was called but you could try something like this. Change vmlinuz for the actual name of your kernel (or make a symlink in /boot pointing at your kernel and call it vmlinuz)

Code:

title Slack
root (hd1,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb5

ZorlacBabelfish · 01-12-2005, 09:13 PM

Hey thanks! The help is much appreciated! I had to add ro following the kernel for Slack. Not sure why exactly, something about filesystem check. I do have a small problem with mandrake though. I get the following message at boot

from boot.log)
Jan 12 21:32:03 Zorlac umount: umount: /initrd: device is busy
Jan 12 21:32:03 Zorlac rc.sysinit: Unmounting initrd: failed
Any idea's? I this a major problem?