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Enkahel
n00b
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 9
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 Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2005 4:08 pm Post subject: [LILO config] 2 different linux on the same laptop |
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Hi guys,
Just a little question concerning LILO config :
I have a XB7 laptop with a MDK 10.1 on it.
I've just installed gentoo on it, using MDK to prepare disks, and so on (chrooting, etc..)
Now install is complete, and I would like to reconfig MDK Lilo in order to add an entry for gentoo.
Prob is that the MDK lilo config refuse to acknoledge the path of the gentoo kernel (quite logical, because of the chroot)
here is the config of lilo I tried :
default="linux"
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/fr-latin1.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=nomount acpi=on splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=nomount acpi=on"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hda1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe acpi=on devfs=nomount"
read-only
image=/boot/kernel-2.6.7-gento-r11
label="gentoo"
root=/dev/hda3
read-only
I have MDK linux installed on HDA1, swap is common for the 2 distrib' (HDA5) and gentoo is installed on the HDA3 partition, other partitions are not important for this problem...
any idea of how I should config my lilo.conf on this case ? |
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dee2
n00b
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 71
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| Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2005 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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mount hda3 somewhere ex. /mnt/gentoo
and in lilo.conf use
image=/mnt/gentoo/boot/kernel-2.6.7-gento-r11 |
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Enkahel
n00b
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2005 4:38 pm Post subject: |
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That will certainly work for reconfig lilo under MDK, but wil there not be a problem when I will restart the computer ?
because at computer's start, gentoo will not be mounted, and /mnt/gentoo/boot will not be accessible, will it ?
(I prefer asking what is going to happen insteadof trying by my self and crash something I don"t want to...)
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dee2
n00b
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 71
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| Posted: Sat Jan 08, 2005 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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It will work
No the mount point will not be there when you boot gentoo and that's fine.
I've installed many different distributions but always kept the lilo configuration from only one of them, never had a problem with it. |
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Enkahel
n00b
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 9
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| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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Ok, It's working
cheers !
But now.... It's working, good... but may I ask why ?
Why does it working although the system file is not yet mounted ? |
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dee2
n00b
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 71
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| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2005 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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Glad it worked for you, sorry I can not explain to you why it works - magic is involved
Maybe someone else will step in and explain, perhaps you will find something in the lilo manual or read "linux from scratch". |
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mlsfit138
Guru
Joined: 20 Sep 2003
Posts: 406
Location: Washington
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:51 am Post subject: |
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| dee2 wrote: | Glad it worked for you, sorry I can not explain to you why it works - magic is involved
Maybe someone else will step in and explain, perhaps you will find something in the lilo manual or read "linux from scratch". |
In case someone is still interested, I think I have solved this puzzle by making a mistake. It is not magic, as dee2 supposed, but genius at work.
First, I followed dee2's advice about what to put in lilo.conf
second, I forgot to run lilo before rebooting to test it out
Third, booting the image failed, I remembered that I hadn't run lilo before rebooting, so I booted into my other gentoo install (don't ask why I have 2) and ran lilo
fourth, lilo failed, and I didn't understand why. Then I realized that I hadn't mounted the other install in this linux session. I mounted it, ran lilo, and everything worked, and a light came on. 
fifth, I booted again, and ran "cat mtab" before and after I mounted the the other install:
before:
| Code: | /dev/hda3 / reiserfs rw,noatime,notail 0 0
none /dev devfs rw 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
none /sys sysfs rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0
/dev/hda4 /home ext3 rw,noatime 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw 0 0
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after:
| Code: | /dev/hda3 / reiserfs rw,noatime,notail 0 0
none /dev devfs rw 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
none /sys sysfs rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0
/dev/hda4 /home ext3 rw,noatime 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw 0 0
/dev/hdb3 /mnt/gentoo reiserfs rw 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/gentoo/boot ext2 rw 0 0
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Notice the additional mount points in the second cat of mtab.
My conclusion is that when lilo is executed, it scans mtab, and intelligently writes the appropriate information about mount points into the boot file. I could be wrong, but if I am, I'm pretty sure I'm close to the right answer.
This raises the question: how in the heck does grub manage this? It has to be something completely different because you don't need to execute grub after changing the config (at least that's how I understand it, I've never used grub)
thanks, dee2 for showing us how to accomplish this, and thank you enk for asking the question, so that I didn't have to.
_________________
"Everytime you justify
another good in you dies"
-Converge, The Saddest Day, Petitioning the Empty Sky |
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ppurka
Advocate
Joined: 26 Dec 2004
Posts: 3256
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | This raises the question: how in the heck does grub manage this? It has to be something completely different because you don't need to execute grub after changing the config (at least that's how I understand it, I've never used grub) |
Actually, I am pretty much surprised by this method that has been suggested.  I don't use lilo but I use grub. I have MDK10.0 and gentoo installed. And, using grub, I didnot have to resort to any such technique. My menu.lst looks like this: | Code: | timeout 5
#color black/cyan yellow/cyan
color white/black
default 0
splashimage=(hd0,7)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Gentoo Linux Kernel 2.6.9-r6
kernel (hd0,7)/kernel-2.6.9-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/hde9 hdg=none hdg=noprobe devfs=mount floppy=none floppy=noprobe
#initrd=/boot/initrd-gentoo
title Mandrake Linux 2.6.3-7mdk
kernel (hd0,7)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hde1 acpi=ht devfs=mount vga=788 hdg=none floppy=none floppy=noprobe
initrd (hd0,7)/initrd.img
title failsafe
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hde1 failsafe splash=silent acpi=ht devfs=nomount hdg=none hdg=noprobe floppy=none floppy=noprobe
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img |
In fact, I have the same partition for /home for both MDK and gentoo. And I never had a problem with booting into gentoo or MDK. Of course, my /boot is in a different partition.
cat /etc/mtab: | Code: | /dev/hde9 / ext3 rw,noatime 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
none /sys sysfs rw 0 0
none /dev ramfs rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/hde1 /mnt/Mandrake10.0 ext3 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/hde8 /boot ext3 rw,noatime 0 0
/dev/hde6 /home ext3 rw 0 0
/dev/hde7 /mnt/stuff ext3 rw 0 0
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw 0 0
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mlsfit138
Guru
Joined: 20 Sep 2003
Posts: 406
Location: Washington
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| Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 8:20 am Post subject: |
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yet another mystery solved. you simply name the device rather than the mount point in grub. My god, that is way too logical! I bet that you can do the same thing in lilo.
_________________
"Everytime you justify
another good in you dies"
-Converge, The Saddest Day, Petitioning the Empty Sky |
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slycordinator
Advocate
Joined: 31 Jan 2004
Posts: 3065
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 8:45 am Post subject: |
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| mlsfit138 wrote: | | yet another mystery solved. you simply name the device rather than the mount point in grub. My god, that is way too logical! I bet that you can do the same thing in lilo. |
I'm pretty sure you can't do it.
This has always been the main difference between lilo and grub. lilo uses the devices from /dev. grub gets it's device information, though, from the bios.
So lets say I have one SATA HD on my comp. So using a 2.4 kernel it would probably be called /dev/hde. But then if I recompile the kernel to use the newer drivers it would call it /dev/sda.
If I were using lilo to boot and make that change, I'd have to change the device it uses to boot off of (since /dev/hde will no longer exist). If I used grub, I wouldn't need to change anything because to the bios I still only have 1 disk.
edit:
And the reason you don't have to run anything related to grub after recompiling is because the grub executable (the one installed on the mbr or wherever you want) is set up so that it loads the config file (grub.conf or menu.lst) from the partition with the boot record.
Like with lilo, you use the config file to make the executable but with grub the executable uses the config file. |
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Installing Gentoo
