Hi all,
I'm the author of nuni, so I'll try answer.

Lucinda wrote:

> kevin360@yahoo.com (Kevin) wrote in message
>
>> I had problems with LILO and a new Giga-byte P4 MB. Tried
>> different settings in the BIOS and LILO didn't fix the problem.
>> Finally I tried 'nuni' and it boots no problem. nuni bypasses the
>> BIOS code and accesses the drives directly, I wish LILO would
>> incorporate it's code as an option. You can find nuni on freshmeat:

Actually, nuni started as a proof-of-concept to try to get the lilo author
to incorporate the technique.

>> http://freshmeat.net/projects/nuni/
>
> Thanks Kevin. I'm a real newbie...I've only been playing around with
> Slack, Linux and OS's for about a month. I'm taking a look at the
> program you suggested. Are the install instructions really as easy as
> follows?

It's really very easy for drives hda thru hdd. For hde & higher you have to
find the i/o addresses (usually in /proc/pci) and insert them.

> Installation instructions:
>
> (1) put the nuni-0.08.tar.gz file in a convenient place
> (2) tar zxf nuni-0.08.tar.gz
> (3) cd nuni-0.08
> (4) ./c (this is a script with a gcc command in it)
>
> Configuration and installation instructions (for nuni):
>
> (1) cd /path/nuni-0.08
> (2) edit nuni to set the following items:
> (a) path to kernel image <----------------So this would be
> /boot/vmlinuz??

yes

> (b) target partition for installing the boot loader
> <--------/dev/hda3??

yes

> (c) command line for kernel <---------Do I need one if I haven't
> been passing any special paramters to the kernel??

You'll need the "root=/dev/...." and the "ro" Those are equivalent the
similar lines in lilo.conf. Adding more command lines is equivalent to the
"append" command in lilo.conf.

> (3) ./nuni
>
>
> And I am assuming that I don't need to install nunimbr.asm since I
> have only Linux on my system.

There are 2 utilities, nuni & nunimbr. nuni is a loader and nunimbr is a
selector (I hate to say boot manager for such a little routine).

nuni is slightly too big to be put in a sector that has a partition table
(e.g. in the MBR), so it goes in any available boot sector (hda1, hdb2,
etc) or on a floppy. Just as for lilo, if you put it in one of these boot
sectors, there must be something to execute it.

The BIOS goes straight to the MBR of hda if it exists, and there's some
mystery about where the BIOS goes if there's no hda. The best way to
remove the mystery is to put something known to you in the MBR (e.g. lilo
or nunimbr).

nunimbr allows you to interactively name a partition to boot, then it
executes whatever it finds in the boot sector of that partition (hopefully
a loader). With nunimbr on a floppy, you can take the floppy from machine
to machine and boot any desired partition (assuming there is a loader in
that partion's boot sector). It can also be non-interactive.

> Are my assumptions correct? I just want to make sure before I try
> this. If this doesn't work, can I just continue to boot with my
> Syslink disk? Should I try GRUB as an alternate to LILO? This is
> quite annoying. I can understand having problems if this were a new
> installation, but I was fine up until yesterday. Strange.

I have 2 machines that spontaneously get the "L 99 99 99..." (with lilo)
after working correctly for a while. On those I'm forced to use nuni. I
typically use lilo on the machines where it works reliably. As for Grub,
I've never made it through the complications in order to try it.

Neil