On Monday 24 November 2008 13:23:27 David A. Bandel wrote: > Alan McKinnon wrote: > > On Saturday 22 November 2008 04:46:48 David A. Bandel wrote: > >> Lennart Sorensen wrote: > > > > [snip] > > > >>> grub (at least on debian) has that too. Just grub-reboot to pick the > >>> kernel for the next boot, and after that it will go back to the current > >>> one again. > >> > >> Interesting. But not only not intuitive, more trouble than it's worth: > >> grub-reboot 3 > >> vs > >> lilo -R Linux | BSD | Solaris > >> > >> what was 3 again? My OpenBSD install or my Solaris install. Now do I > >> count from 0 for this or is that just disks and partitions? Bad enough > >> the GRUB developers couldn't decide on a "standard" hard drive syntax > >> already in use, like sdx or hdx or wdx or even the gobbledy gook that is > >> Solaris device files, nor could they implement simple labels so even > >> idiots can understand what they're going to reboot into. > >> > >> I'm already confused enough. > > > > I think you are missing the point. grub is a boot loader, it is not an > > operating system and should not use a specific operating system > > convention for it's naming. Which names are these "standards" you speak > > of? The Linux ones? BSD ones? Solaris? Windows? Something else? Whatever > > Linus feels like having the kernel call them tomorrow? They are all > > different and not set in stone (unlike major/minor numbers). Seeing as > > these names are only valid once grub has already finished doing it's job, > > it's silly to enforce say Linux conventions on software that might load > > Solaris. The grub devs took the only sane way out - all disks are hds and > > are numbered rom 0 according to a sane discovery sequence. > > No, you've missed the point. A boot loader is not a convenience item, > but essential. These two programs work in such fundamentally different > ways that to drop one is not prudent when we're only talking about two.
However, LILO is not in widespread use and is not the default on anything but a handful of distros. That fact alone should warrant it being removed from LPI's exam objectives, as the exam seeks to be representative of what is in widespread use. If this were not so, we could come up with a long list of stuff that should go back into the exam. Such as gtk-1, xfree86, all the many and varied versions of db. Or even mSQL. I could go on forever. > And AFAIC, the GRUB devs did everyone a disservice in not using > standing conventions and having the software translate it from that > nomenclature into one it could use (if it couldn't use the nomenclature > of the OS it's booting). LILO is at least sane and readable from that > standpoint -- and it doesn't use /dev/hda or /dev/sda, it translates > that for us into 3,0 or 8,0 used by the OS to refer to the devices. You miss the point again. You are assuming that from a boot loader point of view, there is a thing called "standard nomenclature" that even exists. It does not. /dev/*da is Linux thing, utterly and completely irrelevant to BSD, Windows or Solaris or anything else that is not Linux. Boot loader are ideally OS-agnostic, and grub tries to go this by natively booting anything that is multi-boot complaint, and using chainloading for anythign that isn;t. I agree that the nomenclature is a major pain in the butt, but I also submit that it is a much lesser evil than using any specific OS conventions. Can you imagine the uproar if you had to describe disks to grub using Solaris conventions on a Linux system? The majority of people I know who are LPI certified can't even described how Solaris does it! Heck, I even have to look it up every time. > Not even boot loaders should be geek elitist garbage. But just because > seemingly every distro has GRUB as default on x86 systems doesn't mean > LILO has become irrelevant. I never said it is. It works, it gets the job done and if that's cool for you, then go ahead and use it. But that doesn't mean it should go in the exam. Example: I admin 9 caching servers dealing with around 6000 queries a second each. I've given up explaining to the youth brigade why they do not run bind. But I'll tell you - bind instantly slows to a crawl under that load and hard limits to 130 queries a second. So we use cns and take the license fee in the shorts. Should I now ask for cns to be included in the exam because it's a carrier-grade caching name server and that industry has heavily adopted Linux? This is obviously a stupid statement, doubly so because my machines run FreeBSD, but you get the idea. > When Caldera (the first to use this) came out with it as default in 1997 > (IIRC), it crossed my eyes and I thought: gee, I hope the folks writing > this start using standard OS conventions for disks (let the software do > the work instead of me). Over 10 years later and I can't understand why > the ridiculous conventions persist. ANYONE can read and understand > lilo.conf (assuming they read English). But when I saw GRUB (having > admin'd SUN and ULTRIX for some 10 years at this time) my head hurt. It > still hurts when I see it and why I immediately change it. I don't need > my job made harder on purpose. Again you miss the point and assume a convention exists where there is none. LILO is also Linux and x86 specific. I could be wrong, but I don't think you can put LILO on a machine from FreeBSD dual-booting Linux and FreeBSD. Not everyone has your use-cases, so I'll say it again: you are free to use LILO if you wish. It does a fine job for you but is way too restrictive to be used in the wider arena. Grub can, the distros recognize this and the vast overwhelming majority have made the default. Therefore grub logically belongs in the exam and LILO logically does not. > > [snip] > > > >>> Also grub is written in C, lilo is assembly. I know which one I find > >>> easier to maintain and add features to. > >> > >> I haven't the time or desire to maintain or add features to lilo, grub, > >> or any of a thousand plus other packages. I install the binaries and > >> run with them. If I tinker w/ 3 packages a year, that's a lot. > >> > >> Lilo needs to stay in the exam. > > > > Well, that's your opinion. Others might disagree. The only sane criterion > > I've seen yet in this thread to decide if lilo stays or goes is "how many > > distros use it by default" and perhaps "how many people use it in real > > life"? > > > > If you find it useful, that's great - continue to do so. You have the > > same choice w.r.t. qmail or djbdns[1] for example. But that doesn't mean > > it is sufficiently pervasive to warrant inclusion in a generic exam. > > Again, GRUB/LILO are not convenience items. I can run a server without > it running DNS or even SMTP. But I can't run it at all if I can't boot > it, so your argument is irrelevant. What the living blazes are your talking about? How can my argument possibly be irrelevant when I'm saying LILO is not in sufficient wide-spread use to warrant inclusion on an exam and you are talking about getting the machine to boot? I really don't care which boot loader you use. I assume that you are sufficiently knowledgeable in these matters to make up your own mind. But, and this is a big but, the only perspective you have offered is your own, and that is simply not good enough for inclusion on an exam on that sole basis. > If a new LPIC-1 admin enters my > shop, upgrades the kernel and reboots without running lilo, he's going > to have a hard time recovering (while I wonder how he passed the exam). No, he will not have a hard time at all. The machine will simply boot into the previous kernel, not the new one, from where he can run lilo and boot again. Inconvenient, yes. Train smash, hardly. Unless he, the distro, or whoever wrote your deployment software is sufficiently brain-dead to have deleted the old kernel files before testing them at least once. [Yes, I have seen this in real-life production...] > > Do you not think that an LPIC-1 qualified person is clued-up enough to go > > and find out how lilo works should they decide to give it a try? Do you > > also not think that if someone can show he understands the basics of > > bootstrapping via grub questions, that the purpose of the Objective has > > been satisfied? > > No, I don't. Anytime I get asked a question about GRUB I have to go > look it up because the conventions are so bizarre and non-intuitive it > becomes a chore to use (another reason not to use it). Nothing this > elitist should be a default, but unfortunately is. I'm waiting for > sanity and a return to LILO. I'm waiting for the return of the dodo. That ain't gonna happen either, for pretty much the same reason. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com _______________________________________________ lpi-examdev mailing list [email protected] http://list.lpi.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lpi-examdev
