Newbie questions about booting Slackware

[Steve Holmes]

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I never recalled a lot of danger warnings about lilo but quite
frankly, I don't see how one could boot a system without it.  I guess
one could use syslinux from floppies or something but lilo is quite
easy to use.  Like so many other linuxish things, one should read up
on it to get the most out of it.  The Slackware liloconfig script does
a fine job in creating bootdisks and also a fine job at configuring
your boot strap for your hard disk.  I've dual and single booted using
lilo for years and never had problems with it.  Just remember to run
lilo every time you build a new kernel or you won't boot:).

One beauty of using something like lilo is you can set up several
entry points or labels in your lilo.conf to point to possibly
different kernel images.  This way, you could experiment with a new
version of a kernel or different options of such and if it fails to
boot then just boot with your "tried and proven" version.  'man lilo'
will give you a good explanation of lilo and how it works; also look
at 'man lilo.conf' which will explain the various options to
lilo.conf.

The previous comments about building a bootdisk are most valuable.  I
have a machine at home that for some reason, won't boot off hard
drive. - old machine with a new larger drive I guess.  The boot floppy
saves my butt on that machine.  I've also been saved by a boot floppy
when I screwed up my hard disk boot image.

One other thing.  When it comes to the lilo.conf file, you can put in
those extra parameters like synth selection and any other kernel parms
you might need to use on the image line so you could get down to a
short name or single letter to select the boot image you want.  If you
want any examples of lilo.conf, I'll be glad to send you one privately
or I'll bet some others on the list would do likewise.  Then you can
compare examples.

On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 03:04:18PM -0700, Debee Norling wrote:
> Alex writes:
> 
> >You should install lilo. I'm not sure why it makes it seem like lilo
> >is such a dangerous thing to install...I guess it's because eomeone
> >who's dual-booting can screw up their system.
> 
> They should really say then that dual-booting is dangerous. The install (and
> the current docs which I've also read for Slackware) imply you should stay
> away from lilo and that magically, your system will boot when you're
> finished.
> 
> If I was mislead, so will be others, so it's now in the Speakup archive --
> install Lilo and ignore the warnings.
> 
> It's silly nowadays anyway to dual-boot; machines are so cheap that even a
> person on fixed income can afford them. I used to be very poor and now, I
> work  at a community college with disabled students, so I know what it means
> to be on fixed income.
> 
> Our local surplus stores have 350MHZ pentiums with 3GB hard disks for
> between 20 and 60 dollars without operating system, depending on the other
> options like CD writer and USB. For $100, you can get a surplus (probably
> refurbished) Pentium II with about 96MB of ram, a 4GB hard drive, a legal
> Windows operating system and a slow CD writer. When you visit on Saturdays,
> the 486 computers are stacked in dusty racks outside with signs that say
> "make an offer".
> 
> Granted, I live in Silicon Valley, but a little web shopping can get you the
> same thing. In fact, my two favorite surplus stores, Halted Specialties and
> Weird Stuff Warehouse, both sell on the internet as well, and their labeling
> about whether stuff has been tested is honest. Just buy some old junk
> machine for $100 and skip the messy dual-boot!
> 
> 
> --Debee
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 

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