Alright, I installed slackware a while ago and it automatically installed LILO. I personally prefer GRUB so I am going to try to get it running. Please let me know if the following information is the correct way to do this (I want LILO to not be the bootloader anymore. LILO was installed to the MBR during my installation so I assume GRUB will have to go there as well?) Here goes...

First: open /boot/grub/menu.lst and put the following text into it:

Now this is where my first question comes into play. I only have ONE OS which is Slackware. So I assume I can remove all of the text under "#for booting WILDLY"?

And because I only run one OS, shouldn't the following:
be changed to

?

And then after the config part is done, all I have to do is run "grub-install" as root?

And then lastly, but not at all essential, is it possible to change the background color of the GRUB screen to a background image? If so, how can it be done and does the image have to be any specific size?

Thanks so much

You can just comment it out.

After config file...just do grub-install /dev/hda

You can put splash screen in grub. Although they have a limitation of only 14 color images...just search google for "grub splash screen". There are few how-tos out there that i've seen. Sorry i don't have the links right now but you should get them from google.

Tux

The root() function is the grub root partition
eg, the partition from where it will search files

So root(hd0,4) will tell to grub to set its root to
/dev/hda5

That corresponds to the partition where /boot is located,
not neccessarly the / partition as /boot may be on a
separate partition.

Thanks Keefaz for pointing that out...i must be dozing

Tux,

How can I check to make sure what :

root I should put in (I think its 0,0) and what # dev/hda# should be (I think its hda1)?

And also, tuxrules said to do "grub-install /dev/hda". So i run just that and not "grub-install /dev/hda#", (where number is the right root).

I believe that "/dev/hda" is correct because "/dev/hda#" refers to individual partitions. The loader really goes into the boot-record, outside of a partition.

As an aside... I definitely prefer grub, not only because you don't have to re-run anything when you change the boot-partition, but also because grub has saved my many times. When something goes wrong, as inevitably it will (and at the worst possible hour), grub actually provides you with simple tools that might let you fix the problem on-the-spot, without grabbing for an emergency CD-ROM. It is well worth the time to read the grub documentation completely.

The following scenario explains how grub handels your hardisk in terms of primary master disk and primary slave disk. It assumes that Slackware is installed under the first partition of your primary master disk and SuSE is installed under the fourth parition of you primary slave disk.
When Slackware is started, the primary master disk is referred to as /dev/hda and the primary slave is referred to as /dev/hdb. The Grub bootloader, however, uses a slightly different naming convention, since it was originally designed to be multiplatform (which it actually is). The primary master disk is hd0 and the primary slave disk is hd1. The first partition on the primary master disk is hd0,0 (/dev/hda1 under Slackware), the second parition of the primary master disk is hd0,1(/dev/hda2), etc.
The Grun bootloader configuration file is "/boot/grub/menu.lst". In this file, the entries to boot Slackware and SuSE are put there by default and may look like this :

###Slackware 10.1
title Slackware
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz ro root=/dev/hda1

###SuSE 9.3 Prof
title SUSE LINUX 9.3
kernel (hd1,3)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdb4 vga=0x31a selinux=0 splash=silent resume=/dev/hda2 showopts
initrd (hd1,3)/boot/initrd

Apologies...mispost.