LILO hates me

fallenfantasyx · 09-15-2007, 02:58 PM

Hello,

Im semi-new to linux I recentyl tried ubuntu 7.04 and i loved it but it was missing something...real down and dirty customizing, so i decided i was gonna switch to slackware so i can get a better feel for my new OS

as a preface here is my setup

250gb SATA drive

10gb paritition for windows xp

230gb partition for storage

320gb SATA

sdb0 /

sdb1 /swap

sdb2 /home

sdb3 /usr

120GB IDE drive for storage

Ok here is my issue, i completely erased ubuntu and went back to a fresh windows MBR. I installed slackeware using the above partition table and everything went find all 4.5gb+ of packages. the problem is LILO setup, i create a new header so i can add my windows parititons and tell LILO to get to the superblock of sdb (want to replace LILO with grub after i finish setup so i can setup real dual boot with Grub on MBR) anyway i set up my windows parition to boot in expert mode, then tell it to install LILO to superblock. When i say next it goes to Install LILO then gives me a general error stating LILO install could not happen boot from floppy rescue (which i dont have a floppy)

i tried reinstalling lilo from the boot line when u boot from cd, but when i go to mnt the slackware cdrom it isnt in fstab...

my question is what is causing this? i dont wanna install LILO to MBR now b/c i dont know lilo enough i could lose my windows boot, waiting for grub...all i have is the boot line to work from, and i can access my new patitions in windows with the EXT2IFS so if i can DL the grub package place it in the / and install the package then run the config that would be great, is there a way to do that or a way i can reload LILO cause it wont mount my cdrom when i try that...?

AceofSpades19 · 09-15-2007, 03:12 PM

how could you lose your windows boot, worst case senario is that you have to boot from the windows cd and do fixmbr

fallenfantasyx · 09-15-2007, 03:15 PM

if i put it on the MBR chances are its just going to fail the install again, thats what i keep finding when i research this problem

Stedevil · 09-15-2007, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fallenfantasyx

Hello,

Im semi-new to linux I recentyl tried ubuntu 7.04 and i loved it but it was missing something...real down and dirty customizing, so i decided i was gonna switch to slackware so i can get a better feel for my new OS

So you like Ubuntu, just want to get a bit more down and dirty + want to use Grub instead of Lilo. Then why did you change to Slackware? Debian, the more advanced origin to Ubuntu seems like the obvious choice and comes with Grub right of the bat.

Bruce Hill · 09-15-2007, 05:54 PM

I've been using Slackware with LiLO for about 4 years now. And there has never been a problem with putting it in the MBR.

In your post I see some problems:

Quote:

sdb0 /

There is no /dev/sdb0 -- it starts with /dev/sdb1

When you need a boot floppy, you can use the boot CD. If you had a proper /etc/fstab setup, you would have root on /dev/sdb1 -- or similar -- perhaps you've just got a typo? I don't think Slackware is going to give you /dev/sdb0 as a choice. Then you could boot with the Slackware CD and at the prompt type:

Quote:

hugesmp.s root=/dev/sdb1 noinitrd ro

which would boot your installed system. That is assuming you're using Slackware-12.0, because you don't say in your OP. (IF you want really good help, you need to give really good details in your posts. The guys much smarter than me won't even reply when they have to guess so many things about your system.)

Then you could run:

Quote:

liloconfig

as root and fix LiLO.

There is nothing to fear from the MBR warning message. And GrUB is a whole lot less intuitive than LiLO. Here are two examples of a dual boot setup with LiLO (of the four computers sitting here using LiLO to dual boot):

My workstation

Code:

mingdao@silas:~$ cat /etc/lilo.conf
# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
append="panic=15"
boot = /dev/sda
compact        # faster, but won't work on all systems.
prompt
timeout = 50
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
vga = 773
# ramdisk = 0     # paranoia setting
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
 image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.19
   root = /dev/sda6
   label = Slack-2.6.19
   read-only
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.3
  root = /dev/sda6
  label = Slack-2.6.18.3
  read-only
image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/sda6
  label = Slack-2.6.17.13
  read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# LILO memtest section (memtest)
image = /boot/memtest86+-1.65.bin
  label = memtest86
  optional
# LILO memtest section ends
# Windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/sda1
  label = Windoze
  table = /dev/sda
# Windows bootable partition config ends

and the corresponding /etc/fstab:

Code:

mingdao@silas:~$ cat /etc/fstab
/dev/sda5        swap             swap        defaults         0   0
/dev/sda6        /                reiserfs    defaults         1   1
/dev/sda7        /usr             reiserfs    defaults         1   2
/dev/sda8        /home            reiserfs    defaults         1   2
#/dev/sda1        /WinXP           ntfs        ro               1   0
/dev/sda1        /WinXP           ntfs        users,umask=1000,ro,auto  1   0
/dev/sda2        /Shared          vfat        users,umask=1000,rw,auto  1   0
/dev/sda4        /Ghost           vfat        users,umask=1000,rw,auto  1   0
/dev/cdrom       /mnt/cdrom       auto        noauto,users,ro  0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,users     0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
# Added 05Nov06 for DVD burners and USB sticks
/dev/hda         /dvd1            auto        noauto,users,ro  0   0
/dev/hdc         /dvd2            auto        noauto,users,ro  0   0
/dev/sdb1        /usb1            vfat        noauto,users,rw,umask=1000  0  0
/dev/sdc1        /usb2            vfat        noauto,users,rw,umask=1000  0  0
# Mount point for NFS #
192.168.1.11:/home /serverhome nfs auto,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,hard,intr 0 0
192.168.1.11:/backup /server1 nfs auto,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,hard,intr 0 0
192.168.1.11:/backup2 /server2 nfs auto,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,hard,intr 0 0
# Next line added for kqemu - it will not harm your system
none                    /dev/shm                tmpfs   size=1040M        0 0
# For viewing NTFS drives in USB enclosure #
/dev/sdb1        /mnt/hd          ntfs        noauto,users,ro  0   0

My wife's PC

Code:

anna@peter:~$ cat /etc/lilo.conf
# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hda
#compact        # faster, but won't work on all systems.
prompt
timeout = 50
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
vga = 773
# Normal VGA console
# vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
# vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769
# ramdisk = 0     # paranoia setting
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/hda8
  label = Slackware
  read-only  # Partitions should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hda1
  label = Windows
  table = /dev/hda
# Windows bootable partition config ends

and the corresponding /etc/fstab:

Code:

anna@peter:~$ cat /etc/fstab
/dev/hda7        swap             swap        defaults         0   0
/dev/hda8        /                reiserfs    defaults         1   1
/dev/hda9        /home            reiserfs    defaults         1   2
/dev/hda1        /Win98           vfat        defaults         1   0
/dev/hda5        /Win2K           ntfs        ro               1   0
/dev/hda6        /Storage         vfat        defaults         1   0
#/dev/cdrom      /mnt/cdrom       auto        noauto,owner,ro  0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,owner     0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
## NFS mount points for server ##
192.168.1.11:/home /serverhome nfs auto,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,hard,intr 0 0
192.168.1.11:/backup /server1 nfs auto,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,hard,intr 0 0
192.168.1.11:/backup2 /server2 nfs auto,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,hard,intr 0 0

LiLO is old, tried and true, and amazingly human readable.