I've been following this thread for some time now. I've seen a lot of opinions and preferences, some based on fact, but some also based on assumption and, in a few cases, ignorance.
There is no such thing as "superior" or "better" in the overwhelming majority of cases, and boot- loaders are one of them. GRUB is a dynamic boot- loader that reads information at boot-time. LILO is an absolute address bootloader that is con- figured at install-time. A number of the com- ments made on either are just technically wrong. E.g., GRUB's installer is not more/less dangerous than LILO, and LILO has its firmware (BIOS) order to Linux device mapping issues as well. GRUB has label and install options like LILO as well. The big difference between GRUB and LILO con- tinues to be boot-time. If the first stage is hosed in either, you're screwed with both. If GRUB's 2nd stage is inaccessible, you're screwed whereas LILO will still load. Of course if LILO is misconfigured or a order, storage or other change occurred, you're screwed, whereas as long as GRUB's 2nd stage loads, you can dynamically modify things. Okay, with that out of the way, when does one still use LILO - or more importantly - why do the overwhelming majority of distros still ship LILO, even though rarely is it the default? Because GRUB cannot understand every disklabel and/or filesystem, not even on the PC. E.g., I use LILO to boot a filesystem located in a LDM Disk Label (e.g., "dynamic disc"), which I have run into where it was required. Is the commonplace? No, it's the exact opposite. This whole thing isn't about "better" or "excuses" or countless other, rather "subjective" comments. This goes back to my original concept of under- standing the differences, let alone the reality of how booting works and what issues could arise. You could write a book on this, just for the PC - and, personally, I'd love to shouve it down the throat of people because 10 times out of 10, they do *NOT* remotely understand GRUB and LILO at all. That includes many comments made in ignorance in this thread over and over on both sides. In reality, you've have had to do a lot of non- standard and, even more so, non-PC and/or non- PC BIOS-ATA to even begin to understand them. So, again and in reality, we are testing junior sys- admins in LPIC-1. We have a finite number of ob- jectives over a finite number of questions to cover. So do any of these greater boot-time questions fit, including where LILO must be used? No! As someone like myself, who still uses LILO (even touched MILO the other day again), let alone U-boot and the in's/out's of Anvin's SYSLinux quartet of loaders, says ... it's GRUB for LPIC-1. You should still mention LILO in the objectives for completeness, but I would not be including any LILO-specific questions except where they can overlap with GRUB and are good, general know- ledge details. This discussion has largely missed that, and as someone who has seen almost ever PC, non-PC, non-standard bus/storage and countless other hacks and approaches, I do not see any, single reasaon for a focus for LILO to remotely stick at all. I could easily focus on many other objectives that are better tests for the best LPIC-1 candidates than someone who knows LILO. I have this same argument over knowing assem- bler, especially people who assume any give pro- grammer can remotely "optimize" code for today's superscalar architectures. Learning a 3G language like C teaches just as much about com- puter organization. It sickens me when people argue that assembler teaches "low-level" wheb that's total BS, and it rarely teaches optimization these days. I say that as an EE with an educational specialty on computer archietecure with several years experience in the semi-conductor industry (Let alone embedded application). Same deal on LILO. Proponents are often mis- guided and often dead-wrong on several concepts on booting. GRUB is the most popular because the need for LILO is greatly reduced (virtually eliminated). Statements on GRUB's alleged issues are often incorrect or at least red herrings. LILO should be "known of" and left at that now. There are other things to focus on, even for boot. -- Bryan J Smith - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linkedin.com/in/bjsmith Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
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