I agree 100% here. I've been meaning to say precisely this for a long time, but have not been able to express it so elegantly.
Jason Richey Mark Lachniet wrote: > Hello All, > > In general, I do believe that LILO should be covered extensively. I also > believe some references to GRUB, or other bootloaders should be mentioned at > this time, but not tested on. Probably the next survey in 18 months will bring > GRUB into the fold. I also think that covering dual-boot situations is > important, though it can be abstracted to such a level that it is not necessary > to explicitly talk about other OS'. These points may be covered in other > conversations, but a couple of ideas: > > 1) I believe that the idea of a boot loader is critical to how operating > systems in general work. If we want to certify that individuals understand the > Linux / Wintel (or whatever) environment, it is important that they understand > the concept of a boot loader. All OS' have some type of boot loader. Many of > them allow booting of multiple operating systems. We cannot assume that they > picked up this tidbit of information in a A+ class or something like that. The > amount of detail to include on dual boot can (and should) be limited to the > basics necessary such as: > o Selecting multiple Linux installs / kernels, or other operating systems > o Knowing how to use 'dd' to create a boot sector image (and what a boot sector > is) > o Understanding the relationship between the boot loader and the MBR (logical > sequence of booting a system disk) > o Knowing the difference between booting a linux-native kernel or another OS > (ie, how to boot a NT/9X partition in general) > o Understanding multiple filesystem types and how to reference them in LILO > (which ones LILO can deal with) > > etc. Its not so much important that it matters WHAT the other OS is, but just > that it can be done and how. If I got a LPIC-1 in my shop who didn't have the > foggiest on how to set up dual boot, I would laugh them out the door. Although > someone who may understand "enterprise" or "professional" Linux environments may > not need to know much about it, its still a huge hole in the educational > scaffolding of knowledge. Let us not get so focused on an "ideal and pure" > linux environment that we forget what a large number of people do on the average > day. To omit such details would be a disservice to those who wanted to follow > the LPI curriculum to learn. > > I use Linux in a business environment and dual-boot all the time (especially > laptops designed for security work or network diagnostics). For example, > running TCPdump to analyze traffic, and then booting to 9X to log in to a Novell > box. Maybe a dedicated web server has no need for one, but as a tool for > conducting business there are compelling reasons - mainly, why buy TWO laptops, > when you can get ONE with a big hard drive and do two things with it? One of > the compelling reasons to use Linux for many people is the price - and not > knowing how to dual boot in a cost-competitive environment is detrimental to the > implementation of Linux. And yes, I do use VMWARE sometimes, but there are some > major performance and compatibility problems with that as I have discovered. > > 2) Let us not forget that the boot loader does a lot more than just boot > multiple OS's. There are security reasons, such as the LILO password function. > Now there is even a secure Linux distrib that requires a password be specified > in the boot loader, which is then passed to the kernel in order to unencrypt the > filesystem for use. And of course, all the other fun stuff like autodetecting > multiple NIC's, setting memory, etc. I'll assume that everyone is pretty much > in agreement that this stuff is mandatory to test on. That said, why would we > cover PART of LILO (arguments and config files) but not the other part that > deals with booting other OS's, creating boot sector files, and recreating the > MBR in the event that another invasive OS (like NT) re-writes it while booted to > another OS? > > Thanks, > > Mark Lachniet > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- > This message was sent from the lpi-examdev mailing list. > Send `unsubscribe lpi-examdev' in the subject to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > to leave the list. > -- "Jason C. Richey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- This message was sent from the lpi-examdev mailing list. Send `unsubscribe lpi-examdev' in the subject to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to leave the list.
