LILO Dual boot problem

[Kevin Cozens]

Greetings.

At 04:46 PM 10/02/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>   I have setup on my system Win2k, RH9.0 and Mandrake 9.1 (installed in
>the order). Now I am currently booting with the Mandrake-installed boot
>loader but I want to switch back to the vanilla (or Redhat) version of
>lilo. Can someone tell me how to do this? When I try typing '# lilo'
>after updating '/etc/lilo.conf' (from RH9) I get this error:
>
>Fatal: /boot/message is too big (> 65535 bytes)

Something doesn't seem right there. Check that /boot/message is part of the
lilo package. On my RH9 machine with lilo-21.4.4.22 the file is only 23108
bytes in length.

Below is a copy of the lilo.conf file I use. You probably need the line lba32
if your BIOS indicates LBA mode for your hard drives. The append line is
optional. If you need to add extra parameters/options at boot time, you can
instead put them in the append line.

Since you are booting different OS, you need the 'prompt' and 'timeout' lines.
This means you will get a LILO: prompt. The timeout is specified in tenths of
a second so my example waits 15 seconds.

The 'default' line is used to indicate what to boot by default if nothing is
typed at the LILO: prompt. You will need multiple copies of the 5 lines which
start 'image'. In each block you need to indicate the name of the file
containing the OS to boot. The label line is used to name the different boot
options you will have and one of the names will be used in the 'default' line.

The block of lines starting with 'other' is used to boot the MS operating
system.

I have also attached my copy of the boot.message file. This is a text file
which is shown on screen just before the LILO: prompt. You can use it to
identify the machine, or remind you how to select which OS to boot to name a
couple of example uses.

Boot in to either RH or Mandrake and make a boot floppy just in case. Check
that the lilo RPM is installed. Edit the /etc/lilo.conf file to specify the
partitions containing the different OS you want to boot and the name of the
boot images to use.

Once you have the lilo.conf file configured the way you want/need, run the /
sbin/lilo command. It will say 'Added' and the name of one of your boot
choices for each of the boot options you listed in your lilo.conf file. One of
the lines will also have an '*' at the end which indicates which of the boot
choices is the default choice.

If everything looks ok (ie. no errors appeared during the run of the lilo
command), you should be able to reboot the machine and get a LILO: prompt.
Test the system by doing a reboot and selecting each of your OS choices in
turn.

I have stayed with using lilo to boot the machines I administer. I looked at
GRUB once. It seemed more involved to get the grub system set up compared to
the LILO system that was working for me so I saw no reason to make a switch.

Good luck, Madison.

----- start of lilo.conf -----
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
lba32
prompt
message=/boot/boot.message
append="sb=0x220,7,1,5 dmabuf=1 hdb=ide-scsi hdc=ide-scsi"
vga=normal
read-only
timeout=150
default=linux

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-20.9
    label=linux
    root=/dev/hda2
    read-only
    initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-20.9.img

other=/dev/hda1
    label=winme
    table=/dev/hda
----- end of lilo.con -----

----- start of boot.message -----
    ___/\_________/\/\/\___/\______/\___/\______/\__/\____/\_____
   ___/\___________/\_____/\/\____/\___/\______/\____/\_/\______
  ___/\___________/\_____/\__/\__/\___/\______/\______/\_______
___/\___________/\_____/\____/\/\___/\______/\_____/\_/\_____
___/\/\/\/\___/\/\/\___/\______/\____/\/\/\/\_____/\____/\___


Hit ENTER or wait 15 seconds to load Linux, or
type 'winme' and hit ENTER to load Windoze ME.
----- end of boot.message -----


Cheers!

Kevin.  (http://www.interlog.com/~kcozens/)

Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172        |"What are we going to do today, Borg?"
E-mail:kcozens at interlog dot com|"Same thing we always do, Pinkutus:
Packet:ve3syb at ve3yra.#con.on.ca.na|  Try to assimilate the world!"
#include <disclaimer/favourite>   |              -Pinkutus & the Borg

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