Well, I've gone and shot myself in the foot again. ISTR reading
something about a dual-boot system, or at least two different
kernels, and someone said that they have to have different names.

OK, fair enough.

But, I thought, isn't having them on different partitions enough?

i.e.: Here's the relevant parts of my lilo.conf:

# Start LILO global section
boot = /dev/hda
prompt
timeout = 50
vga = ext
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdb1
label = Slack-10.0
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
other = /dev/hda1
label = W2K
table = /dev/hda
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdb8
label = Slack-9.1
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hdb7
label = Boot0
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
-------------------------

I guess I had assumed that when I pick option 1, it loads vmlinuz from
/dev/hdb1/boot, option 3, /dev/hdb8/boot, option 4, /dev/hdb7/boot.

Obviously, I was wrong, because now, (this lilo.conf was done while in
10.0, and written to the MBR) when I select option 3, boot Slack 9.1,
it loads kernel 2.4.26, which is on /hda1.

Does that mean that lilo itself reads the "image" values before it
decides which partition to boot from? Like, it can only get it from
hdb1?

So, I should put:

image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22
root = /dev/hdb8
label = Slack-9.1
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22
root = /dev/hdb7
label = Boot0
read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for checking

in my lilo.conf, and copy the 2.4.22 kernel over to /dev/hdb1 with that
other name? It sounds logical, and also the way to try other kernels with
the same rest of the system, but somehow my misunderstanding of the way
lilo works feels like a gotcha.

Thanks,
Rich

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 17:56:32 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:

> Well, I've gone and shot myself in the foot again. ISTR reading
> something about a dual-boot system, or at least two different
> kernels, and someone said that they have to have different names.

Erm, well it does help, but its not the only way to skin a cat.

> OK, fair enough.
>
> But, I thought, isn't having them on different partitions enough?

Yes it is but what i see is all kernels are in the same directory or
partition.
You are telling lilo to use the same kernel for all systems, NOT such a
good idea as you have well found out.

> i.e.: Here's the relevant parts of my lilo.conf:
>
> # Start LILO global section
> boot = /dev/hda
> prompt
> timeout = 50
> vga = ext
> image = /boot/vmlinuz
> root = /dev/hdb1
> label = Slack-10.0
> read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for
> checking
> other = /dev/hda1
> label = W2K
> table = /dev/hda
> image = /boot/vmlinuz
> root = /dev/hdb8
> label = Slack-9.1
> read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for
> checking
> image = /boot/vmlinuz
> root = /dev/hdb7
> label = Boot0
> read-only # Non-UMSDOS filesystems should be mounted read-only for
> checking
> -------------------------
>
> I guess I had assumed that when I pick option 1, it loads vmlinuz from
> /dev/hdb1/boot, option 3, /dev/hdb8/boot, option 4, /dev/hdb7/boot.

Wrong yes you were wrong, however you can do it this way, BUT the kernel
image names _must_ be different and have thier "root device" changed with
the program rdev OR you need to give an 'init' option to lilo.

>
> Obviously, I was wrong, because now, (this lilo.conf was done while in
> 10.0, and written to the MBR) when I select option 3, boot Slack 9.1, it
> loads kernel 2.4.26, which is on /hda1.
>
> Does that mean that lilo itself reads the "image" values before it
> decides which partition to boot from? Like, it can only get it from
> hdb1?

lilo -v -v -v will show you what it does.
Yes 3 times -v

>
> So, I should put:
Nope wrong...
[snip]

I have chaged your lilo.conf to;

image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22
root = /dev/hdb8
label = Slack-9.1
read-only

image = /mnt/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22
root = /dev/hdb7
label = Boot0
read-only

Mount /dev/hdb7 under mnt and do the folloing.
rdev /mnt/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22 /dev/hdb7

run lilo with the -t option and make sure there are no errors, if no
errors run without -t to update everything, reboot and you should be on
your way.

If i have missed somethig let me know, i am not perfect today.

>
> Thanks,
> Rich

--
If the Linux community is a bunch of thieves because they
try to imitate windows programs, then the Windows community
is built on organized crime.

Regards Richard
pa3gcu@zeelandnet.nl
http://people.zeelandnet.nl/pa3gcu/

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 17:56:32 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:
> But, I thought, isn't having them on different partitions enough?

Of course. But you don't understand how LILO works. LILO creates a map
for the BIOS to follow to load the kernel. It can only access mounted
filesystems, and only using the paths and filenames in lilo.conf. Since
each "image" points to the same file ...

> image = /boot/vmlinuz
> image = /boot/vmlinuz
> image = /boot/vmlinuz

.... you get the same kernel mapped.

If you want to boot multiple Linuces on one machine, you really should
set aside a small partition to mount as /boot in each one. Keep your
lilo.conf in there and make /etc/lilo.conf in each install a symlink to
/boot/lilo.conf.

I was just posting about this in the past day or 2, and I've written
this before as well. Yes, as Richard points out, if you're unconcerned
about cruelty to animals there are many ways to skin this cat. Pity the
poor skinless felines.

But my way is much easier to manage. By keeping your kernels and
lilo.conf in a shared place, you can manage your boot loader no matter
which one is booted.

Another excellent boot loader, which can be configured in ANY OS, is
some variant of DOS (FreeDOS should work) and loadlin.exe. On my old
386 (which is now in its 3rd retirement) I used a 10MB FAT12 partition
for this. My /boot was actually UMSDOS.

I don't know much about FreeDOS, but MS-DOS 6.x[1] has a very nice boot
menu feature. I used to have a sample config.sys when I was on the old
slackware.com forums; if you do a search at them (now located at
userlocal.{com,net,org}) you can probably find it.



[1] The same feature was continued through Win98SE. Actually it can be
used in WinME too, if you are a masochist. You have to patch the
io.sys to disable MS's lame attempt to make people think ME != DOS,
but there are (were?) simple instructions on the Web how to do it.
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