Bootloader problems & compiling for older kernels

[Steve Harvey]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2007 at 01:19:28PM -0400, Scott Elcomb wrote:
> 
> I've got Win95b and Basic Linux 3.5* loaded onto the hard drive, but I
> can't seem to get either lilo or grub working properly:
> 
> - Lilo can load linux, can't find chain.b to load Win95.
> - Grub can load Win95, but not linux (Error 17 - Can't mount partition)
> 
> I built a Grub boot floppy (which was used to install grub to the MBR)
> and that works perfectly fine.  All my googling about the Error 17
> problem suggests that Grub may not work properly with such an old Hdd
> and BIOS.

  You might be running across that old limit of 1023 cylinders.  
Detailed explanation is at:
http://www.unifix.de/tutorial/ENG-Large.Disk-MiniHOWTO.html

> 
> Does anyone have recommendations for other bootloaders?
> 
   I have created boot floppies with syslinux.  All you need is the
(b)zImage, as long as it will fit.  Sometimes when building a kernel
(at least with 2.4.20) you will be warned that it is too big to fit on 
a floppy even though it does fit.  That message is triggered if the
size is over 1MB-64k.

http://syslinux.zytor.com/

  I know that Debian, Ubuntu and Knoppix use syslinux.  Slackware doesn't
use it by default, but support is there  (kernels/makedisk on the
first install CD, at least for 9.0).
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