Just searched for "grub" in the slackware forum. Got 23 hits (LILO got 78).

Slackware prides itself in being the most unix-like distribution. LILO creates the most horrible graphics bugs on my box (all of which I've learnt to fix through the years, but doing it again and again is just tiring), and I just absolutely love the idea of a boot manager/loader that has a command prompt.

I'm not in touch with the developers, unfortunately, but it seems reasonable considering the demand for, and the features of GRUB, to make it the default boot loader. What do people think? Does anyone on this list contribute to Slackware development? Would they like to bring this up? Should be a small change - Knoppix has a nice grub install script (incidentally, they have a nice lilo install script, too!)

Best wishes,

Samsara

Yes I too would like to see GRUB on sackware by default.

Not for me. The only feature I demand is that it boot my box and hopefully I won't see it again for a few months. LILO does that so I see no reason to use anything else.

But granted, in your shoes, I guess I'd feel differently. What kind of graphics bugs? Only display problem I ever had with booting was i810 and the VESA framebuffer, so I just removed the framebuffer line. 80x25 like it was meant to be. And I don't consider that a bootloader issue, really.

Either way, grub is an option - I don't guess it matters what's default. KDE's the default GUI but it's not even installed on this box.

doesnt really bother me what bootloader, just as long as it boots ;p

I'd like to keep lilo as an option, at least. When I recently abandoned RH9, where I was
using GRUB, and installed Slackware, I found the lilo setup simple and straightforward,
but the GRUB manual is overwhelming. Seems to be able to do too much, and hard
to find the simple things. (I've got one computer, no network, dual boot with win 98,
still have RH9 lurking on some partition, but haven't tried adding it to LILO yet -- happy
with Slack, and haven't seen any need to boot RH9. One day I'll try adding it to
LILO just for the experience.)

John Velman

If you have graphical problems at boot, it's not the fault of LILO, it'sbecause you chose a type of console which is semi-graphical. Switch your default console to a standard PC console (80x25 characters) and you should be OK.

LILO is simple and easy to use -- IMHO, it should stay as the default bootloader...

Perhaps you are not doing it correctly? I have used LILO since the beginning and the only problems I have ever had with it were my own fault. GRUB on the other hand... There are so many variables... so many things that can go wrong... bah!

Also if you are using straight-jack LILO with no waiting you will not have any graphical stuff at all "man lilo.conf" GRUB... It would be something else to remove during install.

I wonder how many of you have tried LILO on laptop displays. Generally, especially with using kernel parameter vga=788 (which, for reasons that I cannot fathom, most distributions using LILO insist on using), display gets shifted to left, i.e. there's a bit of the "start" button missing. Usually, but not always, setting the parameter to vga=791 fixes the problem. However, one version of LILO which was widely used was actually broken in this respect, and would boot Win XP with a shift in the opposite direction.

As I said, broken things can be fixed, but if it works out of the box, people can do more useful things with their time, like promoting open source and having babies.

Thanks guys,

Samsara

PS: I have no problem with lilo being the default if there's an option to have grub correctly installed by the Slackware installer. However, experience (MDK, RH) shows that whichever bootloader isn't default is not correctly installed by the installer, i.e. in rh, lilo install fails; in mdk, grub install fails. (Yes, I used to like LILO because it's quicker, but GRUB takes the crown on a system without drives for removable boot media. I disagree with the contributor who said that grub is complicated. menu.lst aka grub.conf is no harder than lilo.conf; for everything else, there are install scripts as mentioned before).

If the hardware you happen to be using requires one extra step to change one of the default config settings, I fail to see how that would be considered to be a bug. It's not, it's just that the out-of-the-box default choice isn't optimal for your PC. Obviously the defaults are selected with the idea that they would probably be acceptable for most machines, but obviously there's no way that one single setting is guaranteed to be optimal for all installations. Personally I think lilo is far superior to GRUB and would consider it a mistake to discard lilo in favor of GRUB. Just my 2 cents -- J.W.

Actually I run it on a laptop.
Gateway 450X 15.1 screen.
vga=773 works perfectly.
resolution 1400x1050.
ATI Radeon Mobility 7500 32MB

<rant>
But hey, like I said it would just be one other thing to uninstall. I just don't want to have to download more than 1 CD to get the distro. Yeah I have bandwidth but it is "the point behind it all". I have always liked Slack (and I am sure other ppl do as well) because of their non-conformity, and not trying to make it so much like Window$ that it is sickening. It gives you choices and doesn't treat you like an idiot when installing and assume that you want everything (unless you select "install everything"). They could stick it on the apps cd or something
</rant>

When I tried RH9, I used GRUB. It was nice...a command prompt that let me change settings on the fly, password protection, etc. It's not that hard to set up either.

Lilo is nice and simple. I suppose the one thing I don't miss from GRUB is its use of the initrd file (one extra thing to load). My computer doesn't need initial ram disk to boot, but if i were to use GRUB, I'd be forced to use it (unless if you can turn that feature off? ...but every grub config file i've seen on the web uses one).

I would like to be given the option of which bootloader to use though.

I'm happy with LILO. There's always a bunch of disagreement on LILO vs. GRUB but personally I know how to work LILO so I'll stick with it.

I have a few random suggestions for "improving" the next slack. Keep in mind I started using slack at 9.0 so I'm still pretty much an advanced newbie, but from a new user perspective:

1. Alter the default installed XF86Config to enable wheel mouse. It's a question so many people ask on LQ, and shouldn't be that hard to add in. Most other distros have this enabled by default. (Note: I realize that adding newer drivers like fglrx for ATI cards creates a new XF86Config that enables wheel mouse).

2. IMHO, either pitch gxine for xineui, or make it a question that is asked in the installer. Gxine has been reported to crash when moving to full screen on some graphics cards (like my Radeon 9800), however xineui works fine. Gxine and Xineui are both just the front end, and I haven't had any problems with xinelibs.

3. Include a default kernel of 2.6.x as well as 2.4.22.

4. Offer the new version of swaret, with the extra packages repositories loaded into swaret.conf.new already. These repositories are listed on swaret.org and include places like LinuxPackages. A newer user will probably find swaret --install <package> easier than ./configure, make, make install or make checkinstall.

5. Offer Openoffice.org as part of the full install. (Or maybe I just missed it).

This might go abit against being "simple" but allow fstab to add an entry for any win partitions existsing on the HD (although working with fstab is a good learning experience).


Also, maybe I'm just not aware here, but if at all possible, don't install the WM specific packages for window managers you don't want. For example, I don't use KDE, and other than a few KDE programs, I don't really need all the KDE crap. Being a newer user, I can't specifically choose through a manual install which packages are for KDE and which aren't, so I go with a full install.

Just my thoughts.

GRUB = <300K binary and config, 902K source.

Regards,

Samsara

My favourite combo is mplayer and ogle.

That's bound to be in the next release, I think. 2.6.x is so much better that people will be keen to move, I think.
Nice to see that there are people prepared to burn (*gasp*, what about supporting development? *cheeky glance in subekk0's general direction*) more than one CD (OpenOffice.org1.0.2 = 310MB).

Regards,

Samsara

I like to see the package-manager improved and, added dependency checking (or) don't include the package-manager at all.
Do either one.