Hello Everyone,
I have just installed Mandrake on a system which already had Windows XP and FreeBSD installed on it. I want to be able to choose which OS to use at boot time. However, I am given no menu to choose from and the default Mandrake starts automatically.
LILO is installed in the MBR. I had a look at the lilo.conf file and saw that Mandrake saw the pre-existing windows partition and added the relevent lines to the file. It did not add lines for FreeBSD. I was able to add FreeBSD using the tools available in the configuration menu. However still no options appear to choose OS on bootup.
I have discovered that if I manually change the default in lilo.conf, I can boot Windows and FreeBSD successfully. However doing so entails changing lilo.conf, running lilo to install to MBR, rebooting to other OS. Then to boot to another OS, I have to boot Mandrake using a boot floppy and change it again.
So how do I change lilo.conf to enable a menu. I was under the impression through reading the man pages that the menu was enabled by default. Following is my lilo.conf file:
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boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="Mandrake_Linux"
keytable=/boot/us-latin1.klt
nowarn
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz-enterprise
label="Mandrake_Linux"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd-enterprise.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi splash=silent"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe devfs=nomount hdc=ide-scsi"
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="Windows"
table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe
other=/dev/hda2
table=/dev/hda
label="FreeBSD"
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The man page also says that the /boot/message file is limited to approximately 65,000 bytes. My /boot/message file is 102KB and is filled with unreadable hieroglyphics. Here's a sample:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*
6 X
+|#x 2lq€ ?'z
*|>V-ڶ;S*wˆ[EMAIL PROTECTED]˜'š=S!8t ;‡McŸ
˜HHH~<<==0000 333""????>>>qq;;yyyFFFF&&&&& ppp 9999
˜HHH~~<<=0000 333""???>>>qq;;yyFFFF&&&&& ppp 9999
˜HHH~<<==00000 333""????>>q;;yyyFFFF&&&&& ppp 9999
˜HHH~<<==0000 33""????>>>qq;;yyFFFF&&&&& ppp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Isn't this supposed to be a readable text file that shows the message to display like for example.
LILO Menu
1 - Windows
2 - Mandrake
3 - FreeBSD
Also my /boot/map file is filled with the same type of hieroglyphics and is 119KB in size.
Can anyone give me any pointers on how to modify my lilo.conf file to get a menu? Or is it the message and map files that are at fault?
Also on another related issue. When I tried to create my Mandrake boot floppy for Mandrake Enterprise it failed because it was too big to fit on a floppy. I had to create one with the other kernel mdk. How do I create one for the enterprise kernel?
Everytime I boot from the floppy it detects changes to the hardware and asks if I want to load the tools to configure them. Then when I boot from the hard disk, it again detects new hardware. Anyone know why this is?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Ron Joordens
Melbourne
