Triple Booting 2 Linux Distros and Windows

kwosource · 03-03-2005, 07:39 AM

I installed Suse 9.1 personal and successfully had a dual boot system with Windows NT using GRUB.

I then successfully installed Slackware 8.1 on another partition and am now able to dual boot between Slackware and and Windows NT using LILO. LILO got written to the MBR and so I have lost GRUB and cannot bootup Suse any longer.

How can I get LILO to run the Suse bootup as well, so that I can choose between all three operating systems on running LILO?

Bruce Hill · 03-03-2005, 07:49 AM

While running Slackware issue
$ su -c "liloconfig"
and choose the expert installation
and install SuSE -- make sure you
know the SuSE / partition

narmida · 03-03-2005, 07:51 AM

just point to the partition like the NT in lilo

tredegar · 03-03-2005, 07:55 AM

You will have to edit (as root) /etc/lilo.conf to add a section pointing to your suse 9.1 partition.

If the format of /etc/lilo.conf is not immediately obvious to you, please read the man pages, or search here on LQ for help.

Then re-run lilo : /sbin/lilo to make the changes take effect. Watch for any error messages. If there are none, then you are set, otherwise re-edit and try again.

Hope this helps

kwosource · 03-03-2005, 08:22 AM

Thanks.

Will give it a try. I have also gotten a portion of the Slackware book from their website concerning LILO and configuring LILO.

Will keep you informed.

tredegar · 03-03-2005, 12:16 PM

kwosource,

I forgot to mention that you will find it very helpful if you can mount your suse9.1 root partition, and have a look in the /boot directory, because lilo will want to know what your suse kernel is called, and you may need copies of the suse config, initrd, kernel.h, system.map and vmlinuz to be in the slackware /boot directory. I remember I got into awful trouble once with this.

Finding your suse root partition: As root, fdisk -l /dev/hda will list all the partitions on your hard disk. If you then look in /etc/fstab (of slack) you will see which partitions are mounted as slack's root, swap and home. The "missing" partition is likely to be your suse root.

For example, I am triple-booting Mandrake 9.1 with a 2.4.21-0.13mdk kernel, Mandrake 10.1 with a 2.6.8.1-12mdk kernel, and, errr, Win98.

My lilo.conf follows. Note how the line image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-12mdk , for example, doesn't just refer to "vmlinuz", but is very specific!

Code:

default="MDK9.1-hdb1"
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/uk.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-12mdk
	label="MDK10.1-hda5"
	root=/dev/hda5
	initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.8.1-12mdk.img
	append="noapic devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent"
	vga=788
	read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk
	label="MDK9.1-hdb1"
	root=/dev/hdb1
	initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.21-0.13mdk.img
	append="noapic nolapic devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5"
	vga=788
	read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label="linux-nonfb"
	root=/dev/hda5
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="noapic nolapic devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5"
	read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label="failsafe"
	root=/dev/hda5
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="failsafe noapic acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 devfs=nomount"
	read-only
other=/dev/hda1
	label="windows98"
	table=/dev/hda

My /boot directory looks like this:

Code:

$ ls -al /boot
total 4344
drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root         4096 Mar  3 17:45 ./
drwxr-xr-x   20 root     root         4096 Mar  3 17:45 ../
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          512 Apr 12  2003 boot.0300
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           21 Mar  3 17:45 config -> config-2.4.21-0.13mdk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        47295 Mar 14  2003 config-2.4.21-0.13mdk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        60428 Oct  1 11:55 config-2.6.8.1-12mdk
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         4096 Apr 12  2003 grub/
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       110748 Apr 12  2003 initrd-2.4.21-0.13mdk.img
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       180912 Nov 30 23:37 initrd-2.6.8.1-12mdk.img
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           25 Dec 31  2003 initrd.img -> initrd-2.4.21-0.13mdk.img
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           29 Mar  3 17:45 kernel.h -> /boot/kernel.h-2.4.21-0.13mdk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          441 Apr 12  2003 kernel.h-2.4.21-0.13mdk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          537 Nov 30 23:41 kernel.h-2.6.8.1-12mdk
-rw-------    1 root     root       175104 Jan 12 18:02 map
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           15 Dec 31  2003 message -> message-graphic
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        96382 Apr 12  2003 message-graphic
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          132 Apr 12  2003 message-text
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           25 Dec 31  2003 System.map -> System.map-2.4.21-0.13mdk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       582935 Mar 14  2003 System.map-2.4.21-0.13mdk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root       547168 Oct  1 11:55 System.map-2.6.8.1-12mdk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          256 Apr 12  2003 uk.klt
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           22 Dec 31  2003 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      1252778 Mar 14  2003 vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root      1306306 Oct  1 11:55 vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-12mdk

I am slightly concerned that your slack installation did not notice that you already had a suse partition and automatically add it to the choices for lilo. I hope it is still there! (See "finding your suse root partition:" above)

Good luck.