Correct me if I am wrong but LILO is still the default bootloader, installed during setup, yes?

I haven't updated my system in ages, and I'm building a new computer. I did some reading, and one site says LILO isn't for UEFI or ext4 filesystem-level encryption, and another says ELILO is discontinued.

Will LILO boot to software-based full-drive-encryption, as well as a hardware-encrypted drive, on a UEFI (not BIOS) motherboard?

Yes lilo is the default, no you use elilo for UEFI.

You can also use grub, but imo elilo is easier.

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So does slackware setup install Elilo by default, or is it more common to use UEFI boards in BIOS-mode? Something I just heard about called the Compatibility Support Module.

Is Elilo actually discontinued?

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I wouldn't recommend using legacy boot mode. You're short-changing yourself if you do. Learn how UEFI works and you will see that it is safer and easier. Also, look at rEFInd.

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Its my understanding that elilo, just like lilo, is pretty complete and finished; and therefore does not really need any maintenance as it were.

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You are overthinking this. If you boot up your installation media (disk or stick) in UEFI mode then the slackware installation scripts will detect this (if will check whether the /sys/firmware/efi directory exists) and if so offer to run eliloconfig for you during installation, which will put an entry in the UEFI boot menu for slackware. If you boot up in MBR/BIOS/legacy mode via the compatibility support module then it won't. Make your choice at install time.

Read the README_UEFI.TXT file. The caveat from that file which is worth emphasizing is that, for a slackware UEFI installation to proceed successfully on a computer which has no other OS on it yet, your computer probably needs to have a UEFI system partition available to it when eliloconfig would run. If it doesn't you may need to create one during installation manually when you set up your partitions and file systems (200MB should be enough). I doubt slackware does this automatically where the ESP is missing, but I am not sure: on a UEFI computer which already has some other linux distribution installed, or has some other OS such as windows installed, then this partition will already exist. My UEFI computers were in that position when I installed slackware.

Whether elilo is still maintained by upstram is irrelevant. It is what slackware uses for a UEFI installation. After installation is complete, you can switch to grub or rEFInd if you want. (I have.)

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on a new system before running Slackware setup you will have to create about 200-300mb esp/ef00 partition and format it as fat32 if one doesn't exist. If your booting in efi mode and an efi partition exist setup will mount the efi partition to /boot/efi during the target stage of setup and offer to skip lilo and use elilo during configuration.

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LILO's sun has set. The only limited use cases that I can think of would be (1) an old computer without UEFI (pre-2011) or (2) a VM guest.

And in both cases, GRUB2 is a better bet. There's more support, more documentation, more users, active development, and the skills learned transfer to other distros.

If you have a UEFI device, take advantage of it. Dump MBR for GPT and use an EFI boot setup. Both ELILO and GRUB2 will work with a LUKS encrypted drive, but again GRUB2 is favored.

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Out of all the bootloaders I've used more than once or twice (and grub2 barely makes that list) grub2 is is my least favorite; lilo however, remains my favorite; followed by elilo, refind, and finally syslinux.

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khronosschoty, we meet again... you and I will be battling this out for a long time. I do appreciate your enthusiasm for the alternatives. I love a good bootloader showdown

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OK, from what I gather GRUB is not an option at slackware installation time, I have to add that later myself, right?

And elilo is still commonly used because it is so stable?

Grub isn't part of Slackware's installer, but it's included. You exit to a command prompt to install it. ELILO will likely work fine for you, assuming you follow the docs. Its issues are not serious enough to prevent booting in my experience. You can always change later too.

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