Re: [newbie] Adding another Linux distro to MDK lilo.conf

[John Richard Smith]

Trey Sizemore wrote:
I originally had on SUSE 9.1 installed on my HD.  When I added MDK 10.1,
I chose not to install the bootloader as I was going to make an entry in
the SUSE grub.conf to boot MDK 10.1.  For some reason, MDK overwrote the
MBR anyway and now I have lilo with MDK options and I'd like to add SUSE
as an option (currently on hda1).  It's been a while since I played with
lilo.  Do I need to first make an entry in /etc/fstab for SUSE
on /dev/hda1 and *then* add an entry in lilo.conf for SUSE?
This is what I changed in the MDK lilo.conf file:
default="linux"
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
       label="linux"
       root=/dev/hda8
       initrd=/boot/initrd.img
       append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda7 splash=silent"
       vga=788
       read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
       label="linux-nonfb"
       root=/dev/hda8
       initrd=/boot/initrd.img
       append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda7"
       read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
       label="failsafe"
       root=/dev/hda8
       initrd=/boot/initrd.img
       append="failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda7 devfs=nomount"
       read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.5-25cvs20040728163444-default
       label=SUSE
       root=/dev/hda1
       read-only
but the issue is that there's no such thing
as /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.5-25cvs20040728163444-default as far as MDK is
concerned.  
 

Dual booting involves resolving where the /boot directory that the 
system is booting from is going.
If you have not already created a /boot Partion you have ended up with 
two /boot directories one in each OS / base, and lilo only knows only of 
the one, the one it has in mandrake / base.

There are two solutions,
either, create a single /boot partition and reinstall both OS's, in 
which case all the boot files for both OS's are installed automatically 
by both OS installers in the /boot partition.

or, copy the /boot files from the dead /boot directory across to the 
live /boot directory, the one lilo knows about in mandrake /  base.

The stanza for suse looks ok to me, but I have limited experience with 
suse and so cannot be sure. The one previso I would have is the number 
of characters for the kernel to boot from, there are limitations in lilo 
for most labels and kernel versions but they have to be precise enough 
to be able to activate the correct kernels.
when you are done run /sbin/lilo to confirm the entries are correct and 
make sure lilo accepts you final result.
John

--
John Richard Smith
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 


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