I have Slackware64 14.1 installed & working fine. Now, I'm thinking about installing Windows on another partition. Then, as I understand it, after installing Windows, I'll need to use an installer to boot Slackware again, chroot into my existing installation, and re-install lilo, right (so I can boot either one)?

My issue, though, is that I have a 32-bit slackware flash drive. I'm wondering if I could boot off the 32-bit installer, chroot into the 64-bit installation, and run lilo... Or do the architectures have to match when re-installing lilo?

Can anyone affirm that it will or won't work?

Hi:

I'm not sure if a usb installer will give you the boot prompt to be able to mnt your linux install.
Most people use a Linux CD.

After you install Windows you should edit your /etc/lilo.conf file and tell LILO about your Windows os.
Than rerun LILO.

http://lateblt.tripod.com/proc10.htm

That could work, but only if architectures match and there is a simpler way (see below).

That won't work because you can't run 64-bit programs with a 32-bit kernel and libraries.

But there is a simpler way, assuming you have an unused USB stick at hand: make it an emergency boot stick. Just run as root:and follow the instructions. Especially, only insert your USB stick when told to do so.

Once it's done:

• Install Windows.
• Make sure your firmware is set up for USB boot.
• Insert your emergency boot stick.
• Reboot.
• Press [Enter] when you see the first screen.
• Edit /etc/lilo.conf, run "lilo -t -v" then if/when all goes well "lilo".

That's all there is to it.

Instead of running directly /var/log/setup/setup.80.make-bootdisk you can do it through pkgtool if you prefer to use a menu.

Warning. The script copies to the USB stick the kernel named /boot/vmlinuz but no initrd. Thus, /boot/vmlinuz should be a symbolic link to a huge kernel, else booting the USB stick will fail.

4 members found this post helpful.

Nice tip Didier!
Just one small point; that is /var/log/setup/setup.80.make-bootdisk on my setup.

1 members found this post helpful.

Here too

That's fixed now, thanks allend.

2 members found this post helpful.

Make sure that windows does not reformat that partition from MBR to GPT

Thanks Didier Spaier for the short how to.

Good information to have on hand for future installations.:-

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply.

I didn't realize it was so easy to create the boot usb - that's helpful to find out.

Did you have success with the boot usb stick?

Actually, no, I just tried it and had an issue. I ran the script, put in the usb stick, and it completed successfully. I went to test it, though, and had an issue: I got the boot screen, and hit Enter to boot my correct root partition (all good so far). Then, it showed "Loading vmlinuz" - slowly, 5 periods showed up one by one, and then I got a kernel panic and back trace (I couldn't see everything that was output, though).

Any thoughts on why the crash happened? I'm using the generic kernel with an initrd.gz. Or, how can I see the full backtrace when it crashes?

Not sure why it crashed.
Look in the logs and see if there are Warnings or Errors that explain kernel panic.
Look in the dmesg log too.

Here's a link for using backtrace.I've never tried it, sorry.

http://wiki.freepascal.org/Creating_...trace_with_GDB
http://linux.die.net/man/3/backtrace

That's the reason. This script assumes that /boot/vmlinuz is a huge kernel or a symlink to a huge kernel.

The primary usage of this script is to make a boot stick at time of installation (at the CONFIGURE step) and of course a huge kernel is used at that time as that's what have been just installed.

So, make /boot/vmlinuz a symlink to a huge kernel, then run the script and make your emergency boot stick. After that you can restore /boot/vmlinuz to point to a generic kernel if you prefer. Me, I prefer to write absolute paths in /etc/lilo.conf whenever the stanza mentions an initrd.

PS I have edited my previous post in this thread to mention that.

Thanks, Didier. I'll give that a try.

Worked great - thanks!