On Sat, 15 Dec 2001 20:43:34 -0700, Gregy wrote:
> I want to boot two separate Linux distros, in two different partitions,
> on my two physical harddrives...
> I want to point my IBM Boot Manager at a separate LILO partition
> which will boot either of the two Linux installs.
>
I hesitate to chip in in the presence of so many real Linux geniuses
(genii??) but this is what I did: I had to have EZ-Drive in the MBR
because I've got a 20Gb HDD and an old BIOS, so LILO couldn't go in the
MBR. Instead, I created a very small (100Mb) Linux partition right after
the two DOS partitions and before any big stuff. This turned out as hda3
to Linux. I installed the LILO thing in the boot sector of hda3 by
putting the line 'boot=/dev/hda3' in /etc/lilo.conf. I also had to have
a line 'lba32' in there or else LILO had trouble with the geometry
arrangements. As you know, lilo.conf has a section for each of the
various things that could be booted from (e.g., DOS, Linux type 1,
Linux type 2, etc.) and in each section is specified which partition
(and which HDD if you have more than one) the 'thing' in question
is located on.
In hda3 I put all the different kernels for the different
installations I had and also mounted hda3 as /boot on every
installation. I made the partition which we're calling hda3 in Linux to
be the bootable partition using (c)fdisk. That seems to work nicely. Now
EZ-Drive runs up and starts up LILO, which offers the choice of booting
into any one of a number of different Linux distributions that I have,
or else DOS.
When installing a new Linux distribution, it's probably best NOT to
allow the installation to go ahead and try and set up LILO itself, since
it won't know about what you've already got set up and it'll probably go
and screw everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) up. Instead, you can
decline its offer to install the loader and then go in and edit
lilo.conf and rerun lilo at the prompt to add the new installation to
the list of bootable systems. Just make sure that you mount the
partition (which we called hda3 above) as /boot and put the kernel for
that distribution in it.
Might I also suggest that you get a copy of the LILO documentation
and read it, because it's one of the more helpful Linux papers. There's
a README in the LILO installation directory (if you have one - Slackware
does) and also a mini-HOWTO which fills in a few more details.
If any of you experts would care to 'filter' this message before
Gregy uses it, I won't be in the least bit offended!
Hope it helps, Gregy?
Gerald.
-- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
