LILO - do I really need it?
 

Slack 9.0... this machine will never run any other OS or dual boot. Do I really need LILO?

Mk.

you need a boot loader of some sort.

It can be lilo or grub, but I find that lilo is reliable and dependable (that is my suggestion and liking).

The purpose of the bootloader is to tell the computer where to find the kernel and root partion.

Excellent, thank you.

yes you need it to boot slack

At first, I used loadlin to boot from dos into slackware. However, when upgrading the kernel, I found that lilo was a wiser choice, since it allows you to configure multiple kernels, protecting you from the possibility that you aren't able to boot back into the O/S.

Another bonus which I found was that using lilo allows you to boot into a graphical console mode (framebuffer), which beats the heck out of what I was using before.

Now that I'm over my original ignorance of LILO, I'll never go back to loadlin (except when I screw something up enough that I can't boot normally).

Cheers!

Garry

I have heard it out forth that you can install Lilo to a primary partition marked as "active" and leave your MBR alone if you wish.
I know installing FreeBSD as the only OS and choosing "no bootloader, standard MBR" will still boot FreeBSD.
FWIW

Or what you can do is edit your lilo.config file and set the time for 1 second and it will pass with out you having to choose.

as root:

liloconfig

choose expert, then make it over again. somewhere in this config you can make lilo boot at once.

just comment out the "prompt" and "timeout" lines in /etc/lilo.conf, then run lilo. you will boot directly into slack without having to see the bootloader.