This just doesn't seem to be my week... first trouble getting the Slack 9.1 ISOs and now trouble with LILO (I think). Heres the prob: After installing Slack and rebooting I simple get a little blinking command-line underscore in the top left corner of the screen... with nothing else. I can't enter anything or do anything. Using a boot disk I can start my Slack install with X and everything. I don't imagine its a video prob because I can start X (even without proper vid card drivers installed). Heres the info:
partitions: hda1 as / (with boot flag) and hda2 as /swap
during install: initialized swap, formatted root as ext3, full install, chose kernel from CD, chose simple LILO setup (tried advanced too, same result), selected root for the LILO booting option (tried MBR too).

What is odd is in the /boot dir there arent that many files (like ive observed with grub). My lilo.conf resides in /etc and thats the only occurance. Here it is though (with comments excluded):

boot = /dev/hda1
message = /boot/boot_message.txt
prompt
timeout = 1200
change-rules
reset
vga = normal
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda1
label = Linux
read-only

Why is that last line read-only? When booting with the boot disk i used the "ro" parameter but this should be my lilo.conf file from my 9.1 install. Is there something special I should know about Slackware install/partitioning/lilo? What am I doing wrong?

lilo has to be in the MBR unless you have another boot loader which will load the lilo bootloader on hda1.

the line
boot=/dev/hda1
needs to be changed to
boot=/dev/hda

I'm not sure why you have a change-rules line. Maye comment that one out (place a # in front of it). The read-only means that the root partition is going to get mounted read only first (it will get remounted rw after the file system check).

Also, you need to run lilo after making the changes:
/sbin/lilo -v

I think if you want it on your mbr you need the line to look like this
boot = /dev/hda

you have /dev/hda1

Seems like you don't even have lilo installed.

Try this:
1) Boot with the slack CD (or some other linux rescue CD)
2) Make a dir in /tmp (eg. /tmp/testmount)
3) Mount your / partition to the dir you created in step 2.
4) chroot to that dir.
5) edit your /etc/lilo.conf... remove the change-rules and reset lines.
6) run /sbin/lilo
7) If there's no error messages, reboot and say your prayers.

Well that was unusually painless. I fixed that line and it worked. One more question though, Where did I go wrong in the install that caused it not to boot properly? Should I have chosen to install LILO to the MBR instead of root? I tried that during one of my installs and still got the blinking underscore.

that was exactly where you went wrong(well thats my guess)

Well, now thats the wierd part. I tried installing LILO to the MBR at one point and still got the cursed blinking underscore. I'm going to run thru the install process again, cuz chances are I somehow messed that up. I want to take the time to go thru all the packages again anyways. If it does work properly I'll just post an update then crawl back into my little newbie corner again, hehe.

the problem might also be the installer producing a bad lilo.conf file. Did you get rid of the change-rules and reset lines before you got it working?

Make sure Lilo's on hda, and make sure you boot from your hda disk. (bios setting)

Ok, I just ran thru the installation again... installing LILO to the MBR and it worked this time. I must have had my partitions messed up at the time I tried to install LILO correctly. I am impressed with Slackware so far. It feels natural and powerful, I'm anxious to play with it.