Hello I am new to linux so i ned a little help here lol, anyway i have a 120GB hd partitioned into 3 drives. C,D, and E. C is 10GB with windows xp on it, D is 10GB with Mandrake Linux 10.0 offical, and E is 94GB for storage. Anyway when i installed mandrake it made a boot loader thing called lilo. And on lilo it lists linux first (default) and i want to change it to list windows first, as default, how do i do this?

edit /etc/lilo.conf with vi then change default=linux to default=windows

Examine your lilo.conf file (probably in /etc). There is a line which reads something like: default=linux. Edit that line to read: default=windows (or whatever the windows installation is named in lilo.conf).

ok thanks im gonna try that the next time i reinstall. thanks

Hi guys,

I have a similar problem. I previously had a dual boot system running Redhat 7.1 and Windows ME. I recently installed Slackware 10.0 and kept Windows as well. It all works properly, lilo lets me boot into either operating system, but what I don't like is that lilo seems to consider Windows to be my default OS (when I boot it has "Windows" automatically selected and has "Linux" underneath) which I thought was a bit strange. I'd like to change my lilo.conf file to make Linux my default and I have done this before (to make windows default) however my lilo.conf file seems to be different to previous versions I've modified and different to everyone elses, it doesn't have a "default = " line. Here it is with comments removed..


boot = /dev/hda
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 1200
change-rules
reset
vga = 773

other = /dev/hda1
label = Windows
table = /dev/hda

image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda4
label = Linux
read-only

How do I set Linux to be my default OS? Thanks in advance,

Francis

Add the line below somewhere at the top of your /etc/lilo.conf

Grrr

Every peice of documentation I come across says that adding "Default = Linux" to my lilo.conf should make lilo default to Linux - it doesnt. Everyone also says that lilo automatically defaults to the first OS entry in the file if there is no "Default=" entry - it doesn't.

I think I have a retarded version of Lilo?

Not sure what else to try, the two obvious methods of getting Lilo to default to Linux just don't seem to work on my machine, I've tried using the "default=" line in capitals, in lowercase, with spaces, without spaces, with quotation marks, without quotation marks, on different parts of the file, etc. I've tried putting the Linux entry above the Windows entry. Boots fine everytime, but always defaults to Windows

Any suggestions on how to fix a stubborn Lilo? Thanks for your help.

Sorry if this sounds redundant.
Where are you putting the default line in?
I would say that the "default" should be one line under the vga lineand all lowercase and the linux should be upper and lowercase exactly as the lable appears.

default=Linux

Hope that works, and sorry if you allready tried that.

Also Grub uses default=1 or default=2, etc.
Maybe LILO swiched to this system.
Couldn't hurt to try.

Bah silly me, just worked it out, you have to run /sbin/lilo after changing lilo.conf

All working nicely now, thanks for the help people

I've just realised that in my last post I made an error and said do default=Windows. Anyway at least you got it sorted out.