I'm trying to set up a triple boot on my Dell Workstation. I have 3 separate SCSI drives, all identical down to the serial number. On /dev/sda -- the first scsi drive -- I have Windows Xp. I installed Mandrake 10.1CE on /dev/sdb. During that install, Mandrake automatically configured a dual boot using LILO, so when my system starts up, I have a choice to boot Mandrake Linux or Xp. No problems so far. I installed Slackware 10.0 on /dev/sdc over the weekend. Here are some of the configs I used during the Slackware install.

1) Booted to Slackware #1 CD and got into Slackware installation program.
2) Using cfdisk, I configured two logical partitions on /dev/sdc. The first, sdc5 is for Slakckware, 17GB, type 82, and bootable. The second partition, sdc6, is for the swap, 512Mb, type 83.
4) I installed the swap with mkswap, and also enabled it with swapon.
5) A message asked me to disable swapon during the installation if I had already enabled the swap, so I selected to disable it.
3) I configured my package sources and started the install.
4) At LILO set up, I selected the expert option and configured a triple boot,. LILO allowed me to add as many bootable drives as I wanted. It identified the Xp bootable drive on sda, so I added it. It identified the Mandrake bootable drive on sdb, so I added that too. It also identified the Slackware bootable drive on sdc5, so I added that to LILO as well.
5) After configuring LILO, it craps out with an error message saying that it could not be configured, but there is no specific error message, and there is no config file at /etc/lilo.config for me to see what the hell it did.

I went ahead and installed Slackware anyway, but when I boot my machine, the Mandrake LILO displays XP and Mandrake LInux as the bootable choices only, which is not a surprise since the LILO config during the Slackware set up did not complete.

I'm not sure why LILO is crapping out, but I think that the following things may have something to do with it.

1) My partitions on /dev/sdc for Slackware are both LOGICAL. Neither is primary. Perhaps I should have made the bootable partition primary, but I'm not sure.
2) A message during the installation complained that my sdc partition block sizes were something like 2204, not the typical 1024, and although the message indicated that there was nothing wrong with that, it still displayed the message to warn me.

That's all I can remember. I'm at work right now so I can't access my machine at home to get more info until later,

Thanks,

SAFX

I ran into the same problem at some point...

i think i blamed it somehow on slack mucking the install with bad link to conf file, or permissions, or whatever...

i didn't get too concerned, because it was easy enough to fix, especially for you given the steps you took to get here --

put your slack cd back in and boot -- you should see their line on how to use the CD as a boot disk, use it (though i'm guessing bare.i won't work for you), and that'll get you back into the system under slack.

look around and you'll find your lilo.conf probably incorrect, so fix that, install lilo (to MBR, or wherever you prefer), and you'll be good...

Hmmmm. You put Slack on the extended partition, and used the Slack LILO. I'm by no means a LILO expert, but doesn't that mean that the Slack LILO went onto Slack's extended partition, and the other LILO is still on one of the primary partitions? That might be your problem. You could try running the LILO config for the LILO on the primary, that might pick up the Slack installation as well.

I always try and follow the rule that every bootable OS should be on a primary. You might be able to create an extended partition, copy over one of the other Linux partitions to it, change your fstab and then install Slack onto the new spare primary.

Damien

[QUOTE]Originally posted by secesh

I just remembered. LILO asked me to include any special boot parameters in the LILO config IF I had to during the Slackware install. You are right, bare.i does not work for me, I need to use
to get things working, so I specified the same parameters to LILO. I'm not sure if that broke it.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by damien
I'm not sure if I placed slack on an extended partition. Like I said, I had a separate scsi drive that I formatted, then partitioned with cfdisk. I configured 2 partitions, both logical. The first was bootable for slackware, and the other was for the swap space

Do you think the block size warning has anything to do with it?

Thanks,

SAFX

Which kernel did you install? If you told Slack to install the adaptec.s kernel image in as your default, you won't need to pass any kernel args in lilo other than the bootable drive.

I don't know if the hdd parameters would affect the boot. I do think that if you add the Slack installation to the oriiginal LILO installation it will boot properly.

Damien

I'm not sure, to be honest. I used adaptec.s because when I first booted from the slack cd to install, cfdisk complained that it could not see any scsi drives, even if I passed /dev/sdc as a parameter to cfdisk. So, since I had to use adaptec.s /dev/sdc to get thing working, I passed the same parameter to LILO because it asked me to include any special parameters that I used when to boot.

SAFX

Sorry, didn't make myself clear. On boot from the CD, you definitely have to tell it adaptec.s. Later in the installation process, it asks you which kernel you want to install as a default. You would specify adaptec.s, and it copies that to your boot kernel. Once that's done, you don't have to put anything into lilo other than /dev/sdc.

Damien

I'll try it again without specifying it to LILO.

Tell me something: If Mandrake currently uses LILO to control my dual boot, and let's say I succesfully configure LILO later tonight using Slack, how does my computer know which lilo.conf to use? I would want it to use /etc/lilo.conf from slack.

Thanks again,
SAFX

I think the first Lilo the machine finds on boot determines what is available. If the Mandrake lilo is on say /dev/sda's first primary partition (or MBR) then that's the one that determines how the machine boots. The Slack lilo won't even be seen. The lilo.conf on the Mandrake drive determines how that first lilo is configured. I think you can ignore the Slack lilo completely, and just configure the triple-boot from the Mandrake one.

Damien

hi there,

there's only one "lilo.conf" used and that's the one you installed it with. ( Slack or mandrake .)
your lilo.conf should have a section like this:

-----------
image = /<path to mounted partition of your other linux>/boot/< your kernel>
root = /dev/hd??
label = <your kernel>
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
# Linux bootable partition config ends
-----------
that will point lilo to the right kernel, and root

egag

I don't believe that is true. I managed to install LILO (even though it did not work) by booting from the slack CD and mounting the sdc drive. At that point, I had 2 lilo.conf's, the one for Mandrake, and the one from Slack.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by damien

I know what you are saying about configuring the mandrake LILO and ignoring the slack LILO. I actually tried that, but the problem (AND IT"S A BIG PROBLEM) is that I forgot the root password for mandrake, so I don't have permissions to change that file, although I can view it.

I think I will delete the mandrake partition and reinstall slack on sdb.

SAFX

You could always get root permissions on the mandrake partition just by mounting it from a linux CD...

Also the lilo.conf is not read at boot, it is in the mbr, that's why you need to run lilo after each
config change, it is to store it in MBR each time.