insalling lilo on Slackware 9.0

ThorsHamburger · 08-17-2003, 03:11 PM

Hi.

I just installed SW 9.0. At the config part of the setup it asked me if I wanted to install lilo. I wanted to intall it on a floppy and not on the hardrive.
It got to a point where It said it couldnt install lilo. SO I chose to SKIP installing it.
Now I have the system installed but I cant boot into it. I have the image install CD and a boot disk.
I want to install lilo so that when I turn my comp on I have the choice to boot into it. If I dont want to boot to SW and instead want to boot to my winXP then I just leave the floppy disk out.

Could someone help

phoeniXflame · 08-17-2003, 04:06 PM

you know you can use lilo to boot a windoze system dont you ? edit your /etc/lilo.conf and add the relevent entrys, something similar to this ...

Code:

...
other = /dev/yourwindowspartition
label = WinXP
table = /dev/yourhdd
...

then run '/sbin/lilo' to install to the disks mbr (if that fails you may have to specifiy where you want it installed using -d, check the man files)

then when your system boots you can choose whether to boot into linux or windoze

Skyline · 08-17-2003, 04:28 PM

Yep - LILO to the MBR during the install would be preferable - as Phoenix said - LILO can dual boot Slack 9 and XP from the MBR.

If you want to install LILO to the MBR - get to a shell - open lilo.conf with gedit and make sure the

boot= directive says

boot=/dev/hda

(this will ensure that LILO is installed to the MBR when you run /sbin/lilo as root )

Also add the entry that Phoenix gave you making sure you substitute the relevant info in.

ThorsHamburger · 08-17-2003, 07:40 PM

Ok now i got the lilo installed properly. It gives the option boot Linux. Then I choose linux and then it for a scond begins to load then it hangs and I get nothing, just a black blank screen staring back at me.
And how do I get to the command prompt from booting off the cd.
After the cd boots I see:

boot:/

So I hit enter

then eventually it takes me to this

root@slackware:/

I try various commands but nothing.
I can look at my files by using cd and ls, but if I try and su it says
cannot find file or directory.
When I did type liloconfig at that prompt I got the same message.
I tried and mount or mny cdrom but I get permision denied but I dont know how to log on as root.

Anyway right now Im mostly concerned about figuring why the system just hangs after lilo.

andrewlkho · 08-17-2003, 11:55 PM

Okay, two things here. Firstly, I think that the reason it's not finding your commands is that in slackware, when you log in as root [I've never logged in as root personally, I just su to it], it doesn't specify your PATH variable, so you need to specify exact location of commands. This is a security function.
About lilo: use a text editor to edit /etc/lilo.conf with the above. Don't forget to run /sbin/lilo after editing to update the changes

Arclite · 08-18-2003, 12:05 AM

If your linux is installed in '/hdb1', specify that the root is in 'hdb2'.

This took me 10 hrs to figure out.l