Having trouble getting a dual boot linux system with zenwalker. have 4 partitions on the hard drive:

hda1=zenwalk xfs
hda2=debian xfs
hda3=slackware xfs
hda4=swap

I can boot Debian and Slackware together with Lilo, but not Zenwalk with anything.

Lilo with Zenwalk

lba32 # Allow booting past 1024th cylinder with a recent BIOS
append="resume2=swap:/dev/sda4 splash=silent "
boot = /dev/sda
bitmap=/boot/splash.bmp
bmp-table=234p,348p,1,4
bmp-colors=220,0,,255,220,
bmp-timer=539p,396p,220,0,
vga = 791
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/sda1
label = Zenwalk
initrd = /boot/initrd.splash
read-only

Lilo to boot Debian:

boot=/dev/hda
delay=20
vga = 791
default=Debian
image=/vmlinuz
root=/dev/hda2
label=Debian
read-only
initrd=/initrd.img


Any advice would be greatly appreciated. If i can get these two to work then Slackware should be easy.

What's /dev/hda4? and I believe there is a limit to 4 primary partitions on one drive. if you can do it, you're better off with a boot drive and then each of the different Linux OS's on extended or virtual partitions (limitations due to partition table size, at least that's what it was when I started working on computers). If you say there is no /dev/hda4, then there's a problem because you shouldn't have a hda5 without an hda4

Edit: Explanation of apparent non sequitur:

This & post #2 no longer make sense -- OP originally referred to "hda5" & not to any "hda4". Post #4 explains that "hda5" was a typo & the edit history shows (implicitly) that OP fixed the mistake.

hda4 is probably his extended part. & he thought it's unnecessary to list it. If he had showed that output as a result of fdisk -l in a "Code" block, then I would worry.

hda4 is swap sorry for the typo.

is lilo configured from ZW or slack/debian (-> from kernel < 2.6.19 or kernel >= 2.6.19) ?

in any case : you'll have to "play" with sdX / hdX (for boot= and root=)


you can have a look of grub config here:
http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,7973.0.html
it might help

Lilo can be configured from either. i can boot either system with super grub. currently booting with lilo 22.7.3 from Zenwalker 2.6.20. Debian is 2.6.18.

in grub, to boot hda2 i have to enter "root (hd0,0)" to boot the the hda1 (Zenwalker) partition and "root (hd0,1) to boot hda2 (Debian). Just need to know how to make the drive switch with lilo and boot from one lilo menu.

i asked from which kernel you are configuring, because hda become sda in new kernels.

As lilo must know the disk when installing, i've to know from where it's run to find the good config.

i didn't test but i guess it's something like:
take care to have a way to mount and change lilo.conf with a boot CD in case it breaks boot
(zenwalk cd is able to do that)


BTW: it's zenwalk, not zenwalker (zenwalkers are people that run zenalk )

Can you post your whole Lilo.conf file, because you said that zenwalker is on /dev/hda1 but you're trying to boot it via /dev/sda1 (at least I think that's what you're doing in your first post). I'm a little lost.

zenwalk use new naming scheme, with new kernel there isn't any hd* they became sd* for hard drives and sr* for CD/DVD drives.

So:
- that's why i asked if lilo was configured from a < 2.6.19 kernel.
- that's why some parts of lilo.conf must refer to sda* (the one for Zenwalk at least, and any other distrib with a recent kernel) and some other parts must refer to hda*

I prefer to use grub instead of lilo,
it's more configurable and i can boot
to every OS installed on my disk,
even not listed on my grub's menu

To get debian to boot by creating a temporary workaround. I like grub better too but would like to be able to fully use both, can boot easily to all installed os's with grub and switch the partition locations for it to boot too. That is basically what I was doing before, just wanted to figure out lilo too .

The workaround atm is to have a copy of debian's vmlinuz (copied and renamed vmlinuz.debian), the map file (.debian again) and initrd (.debian) to the zenwalkers boot dir. have to append the location of root, because zenwalker uses sda for drives and debian uses hda, and the initrd.debian and map.debian calls. I don't like passing that much info and that is why i wanted to see if there was a command to switch what partition lilo boots too like grubs root (hd*,*). Here is the current working dual boot configuration.

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
lba32
# append="resume2=swap:/dev/sda4 splash=silent "
boot = /dev/sda
bitmap=/boot/splash.bmp
bmp-table=234p,348p,1,4
bmp-colors=220,0,,255,220,
bmp-timer=539p,396p,220,0,
#compact # faster, but won't work on all systems.
#prompt
#timeout = 5
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
vga = 791
# Normal VGA console
# vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
# vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769
# ramdisk = 0 # paranoia setting
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins

image = /boot/vmlinuz
append="resume2=swap:/dev/sda4 splash=silent"
root = /dev/sda1
label = Zenwalk
initrd = /boot/initrd.splash
read-only

image = /boot/vmlinuz.debian
append="root=/dev/hda2 map=/dev/hda2/map.debian"
root=/dev/sda2
label=Debian
initrd = /boot/initrd.img.debian
read-only

Sorry for the confusion. Would still be interested in a way to change the current default boot partition in lilo from within lilo.config. I can change it from the prompt with the lilo commands (lilo --help for commands) and boot to either without the large append section, just not from within the lilo.config file.

P.S. I also corrected the initial cut and paste error in my first post ( sorry just noticed.)

i actually never had to specify which map to use, so i'm not sure it's required too. So i think: no append is neededif root is set to /dev/hda2 (instead of root=/dev/sda2) for debian, i guess you just defined twice this value and the one in append is kept.
so you might try:
and (never tested that thing):
i guess you get the idea

The zenwalk lilo refuses to accept root = /dev/hda2. When i use the root = /dev/sda lilo updates, but debian hangs searching for root on boot so i appended root = /dev/hda2. I tried that exact lilo config, no luck with it . Problem seems to lie in lilo's default partition boot. possible due to the map differences (sda vs hda). The current boot setup works, just doesn't seem like the best or most appropriate way. all ideas are appreciated though.

did you try lilo with "-P ignore" ?

still gave invalid root specification. You were right on the map though...it wasn't needed .