[SOLVED] Does anyone know how to dual-boot Puppy 525 using LILO?

brianL · 07-19-2011, 12:43 PM

Not sure, and not sure how to fix it. I think a partition's made active when you make it bootable during install. You need someone who knows more than me ( = most Slackers

).

Robert.Thompson · 07-19-2011, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brianL

Not sure, and not sure how to fix it. I think a partition's made active when you make it bootable during install. You need someone who knows more than me ( = most Slackers

).

Just a note to thank you very much for the time that you have spent on this - I really appreciate it.

It's way over my head too.

I re-installed GRUB and now have a menu to get into Slackware (huge) and Puppy.

I'm thinking about how to word a new post, forgetting about Puppy, and just getting lilo back.

For the time being, I'll just leave this post UNsolved and see if anyone reads it.

Thanks again,

colorpurple21859 · 07-19-2011, 01:22 PM

# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
label = PuppyLinux_5.2
root=/dev/sda6
vga=normal
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

this should work with lilo. not sure about the order of the root line and the label line
Unless things have changed since the last time I did a full install, puppy dosen't use the initrd file and the kernel is installed in /boot of the puppy root partition

Robert.Thompson · 07-19-2011, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colorpurple21859

# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
label = PuppyLinux_5.2
root=/dev/sda6
vga=normal
read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends

this should work with lilo. not sure about the order of the root line and the label line
Unless things have changed since the last time I did a full install, puppy dosen't use the initrd file and the kernel is installed in /boot of the puppy root partition

Thank you.

Perhaps you know what I should do now that I have installed GRUB? Should I un-install it, then edit lilo.conf or just edit lilo.conf and run lilo? Or, something altogether different?

Thanks,

colorpurple21859 · 07-19-2011, 03:27 PM

That is up to you, depends on which one you want to use. IMHO grub legacey is more forgiving if a mistake is made. I have grub in my MBR installed from puppy and chainload to Slackware lilo which is installed to my Slack root partition because I'm always making partition changes and trying differrent distros. If you prefer to use lilo in either the MBR or slack root partition run liloconfig first then edit /etc/lilo.conf to add puppy and rerun lilo

Larry Webb · 07-19-2011, 03:48 PM

I install grub2 in a 20 meg (you could get by with a 5 meg)partition and chainload all my distros. It makes it a lot easier when you upgrade or change them. For one thing it does not cripple booting the other distros when you change a distro as long as you do not mess with the mbr. Puppy is the only one that I could not get to chainload.

Robert.Thompson · 07-19-2011, 06:09 PM

Thanks LarryWebb & colorpurle21859.

I thought that, before playing with Puppy, I would simply delete /etc/lilo.conf and replace it with /etc/lilo.conf.orig - the lilo.conf file that I have been using up until adopting Puppy. It has been working fine for the last month.

So, I ran liloconfig to install lilo to the MBR and by doing that, I assume, any GRUB stuff is trashed and only lilo stuff remains in the MBR.

Then I trashed the new lilo.conf file & replaced it with my original lilo.conf file.

Then I ran lilo and this is the error msg that I get:

Code:

root@lenovo:~# lilo      
Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed
Warning: Unable to determine video adapter in use in the present system.
Warning: Video adapter does not support VESA BIOS extensions needed for
  display of 256 colors.  Boot loader will fall back to TEXT only operation.
Added Linux_G *
Added Linux
3 warnings were issued.

I can only assume that installing GRUB changed something on my Slackware somewhere because that lilo.conf worked perfectly well before GRUB.

Does anyone know what is wrong?

Thanks,

Larry Webb · 07-19-2011, 08:44 PM

I have not upgraded all the latest distros but have had video problems with the last two I did. (ubuntu and suse) They have changed the drivers to keep up with the latest video cards. My older nvidia card is no longer covered and I have to go through blacklisting the existing driver and installing a legacy driver. I guess it is time to upgrade my hardware. That may be the reason you are getting that error message (old lilo conf not compatible with newer kernel).
The only tip I can give is to try and install the newer lilo and here is a link which you may have looked at but I refer to once in a while. It is booting tips for lilo, grub and windows
Boot Tips

psionl0 · 07-20-2011, 02:44 AM

Are you trying to do a dual boot with a FULL installation of puppy?

You are much better off working with a "frugal" installation which is essentially what you do when you copy the contents of the disk. There is no need for grub at all.

What I described earlier is what I have done on my own laptop and it is guaranteed to work. I also successfully set up tinycore linux the same way (though "salixlive" is proving to be a more difficult customer).

gnashley · 07-20-2011, 04:37 AM

When booting Puppy with grub, you appear to not be using an initrd, so there should be no need for it when using lilo. Your original lilo.conf file should work if you delete the initrd=* entry. That said, it might be simpler overall to chain-load grub from lilo -if you can get Puppy to install grub to the partition instead of to the MBR (but I think Puppy will not do so). Personally, I would just grub for everything -there is no good reason to not do that since it already works for you.

Larry Webb · 07-20-2011, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gnashley

When booting Puppy with grub, you appear to not be using an initrd, so there should be no need for it when using lilo. Your original lilo.conf file should work if you delete the initrd=* entry. That said, it might be simpler overall to chain-load grub from lilo -if you can get Puppy to install grub to the partition instead of to the MBR (but I think Puppy will not do so). Personally, I would just grub for everything -there is no good reason to not do that since it already works for you.

This is my grub.cfg entry for Puppy

menuentry "Puppy @ sda9" {
set root=(hd1,9)
linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda9 pmedia=atahd
}

I also tried for half a day to chainload puppy but gave up. I do not plan on upgrading on this computer. This is a full install

Robert.Thompson · 07-20-2011, 06:54 AM

Thank you all, very much, for your time & help.

I have read a lot about GRUB since I started this post and it looks very good.

My lilo does not work anymore, even with all the Puppy stuff removed, so I really do not have a choice but to use GRUB. (I have Googled my fingers to the bone and cannot find a solution to the error msg that I get.)

Marking as SOLVED.

Robert.Thompson · 07-20-2011, 12:15 PM

NB: I am an inexperienced Slacker!!

For those of you who are interested, here is how I installed Puppy 5.2.5 on my Slackware 13.37 pc.

Before installing Puppy, I did a complete back up, using Clonezilla, of /dev/sda1 & /dev/sda3 - my Slackware 13.37 installation.

Before Puppy was installed, this was my configuration:
/dev/sda1 = my Slackware 'root' partition
/dev/sda2 = swap
/dev/sda3 = my Slackware 'home' partition
/dev/sda5 = my 'data' partition

My boot loader was lilo as installed by Slackware and was installed to the MBR.

Here is what I did:
- Downloaded the Puppy 5.2.5 iso and burned it to a DVD using K3b.
- Booted my PC from the Puppy DVD.
- clicked OK to Personalized Settings.
- closed the Simple Network Setup window.
- Using the Puppy menu icon (lower left on task bar) went to System --> Gparted.
- Resized /dev/sda5 to free up some space (I freed up 6 Gib - a lot less would do).
- Applied changes.
- Selected the unallocated space and clicked 'New'.
- Set up the new partition as 'Logical Partition' of type 'ext3' with a label of 'PuppyLinux'. This new partition became /dev/sda6.
- Applied changes and exited Gparted.
- On the Puppy Desktop, I clicked 'Install'.
- Selected the 'Universal Installer'.
- Chose Internal (IDE or SATA) hard drive - OK.
- Chose sda drive - OK.
- Chose Install Puppy to sda6 - OK.
- Chose CD - OK.
- Chose FULL - OK, OK.
- Waited and then closed any open windows on the screen.
- Using the Puppy menu, System --> Grub bootloader config.
- Chose Simple - OK.
- Chose Standard - OK.
- Chose /dev/sda1 - OK. (I did not choose /dev/sda6)
- Chose MBR - OK. (I believe that doing this clobbers any lilo stuff)
- Using the Puppy menu Shutdown --> Reboot computer.
- Chose DO NOT SAVE when asked.
- When the reboot was done, I selected Linux on /dev/sda1 - which is my Slackware.
- Logged in as root.
- Using Dolphin I opened the /root/boot/grub/menu.lst file, which looked like this:

Code:

# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'.  Wed Jul 20 11:56:25 2011
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.4746'.  You can restore it like this.
# dd if=/boot/grub/mbr.sda.4746 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
#timeout 30
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Linux (on /dev/sda1)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Linux (on /dev/sda3)
  root (hd0,2)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Linux (on /dev/sda5)
  root (hd0,4)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Linux (on /dev/sda6)
  root (hd0,5)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable initrd config begins
  title Linux initrd /tmp/boot/boot/initrd.gz (on /dev/sda1)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ramdisk_size=5848 root=/dev/ram0 rw
  initrd /tmp/boot/boot/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable initrd config ends
title Install GRUB to floppy disk (on /dev/fd0)
pause Insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.
root (hd0,0)
setup (fd0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title Install GRUB to Linux partition (on /dev/sda1)
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
pause Press enter to continue.
title -     For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title -     For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/usage.txt'
root (hd0)

and changed it to look like this:

Code:

# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'.  Wed Jul 20 04:00:09 2011
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.32541'.  You can restore it like this.
# dd if=mbr.sda.32541 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
timeout 30
#color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Linux bootable initrd config begins
  title Slackware Linux (Generic) on (/dev/sda1)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz-generic-smp-2.6.37.6-smp root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=normal
  initrd /boot/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable initrd config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Puppy Linux on (/dev/sda6)
  root (hd0,5)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Slackware Linux (Huge) on (/dev/sda1)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends
title --- For help press 'c', type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title --- For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/grub.txt'
root (hd0)

- Rebooted and everything worked.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking with it!

brianL · 07-20-2011, 12:39 PM

Glad you've got it sorted out.

Robert.Thompson · 07-20-2011, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brianL

Glad you've got it sorted out.

Thanks to you and people like you!