lilo or grub

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detox · #1 Post by **detox** » 2004-06-08 20:14

Debian is standard installed with lilo. But why lilo? and is it possible to install grub? and what will be de advantages or disadvantages?

Sorry for all the questions

Detox

lacek · #2 Post by **lacek** » 2004-06-09 07:31

It is possible to install grub, yes. All you need is to install the 'grub' package, configure it (maybe the 'grub-doc' package can give you a hand here), and install it to the boot block.

Now about the (dis)advantages....
I personally don't like, thus, don't use grub, because I wasn't able to do some things in it, but it was a long time ago, so it is perfectly possible that grub already have these, or it had earlier, but I was ignorant.
Namely, the problem I couldn't solve with grub was to 'swap' the drive 'letters' at boot, so I could boot a secondary hard disk, and Windows installed on it thought it was on the primary one. It was needed for my work at that time, and Win98 was stubborn enough not to install itself to any but the primary HDD.
The second thing grub was failed to do, to follow the OS boot sequence. I mean, if the primary boot device if hdc, it becomes 0x80 in the BIOS, and hda will be 0x81. I was not able to install grub and convince it that 0x80 means hdc, thus, it failed to boot.

The only advantage of grub I can think about is that it has an editable command line. You can edit the kernel image, the flags, everything. With lilo, you may add flags to the kernel image, but you can't boot an image not added to lilo when it was installed to the boot block.

But again, when I tried grub, it was years ago.

detox · #3 Post by **detox** » 2004-06-09 11:14

OK thanks.

I'm going to try it anyway (just for fun

) so I can learn from it.
When grub hasn't changed I'm sure I will be reaching back to lilo soon.
When my conclusion is other wise I will post my findings here.

grz

Guest · #4 Post by **Guest** » 2004-06-10 18:13

Grub is the only thing that get's installed from the new debian-installer disk right now... well, I download it a couple weeks ago, and I think that, eventually, you are supposed to be able to choose between grub and lilo, but if you were willing to set up a new system (and test the new installer while you're at it) the debian-installer should get grub up and running for you.

tgoodaire · #5 Post by **tgoodaire** » 2004-09-10 18:18

You might want to try this link if you're switching from lilo to grub in Debian:

http://www.larsen-b.com/Article/141.html

It's pretty straightforward actually, but the article might come in handy.

jsumners · #6 Post by **jsumners** » 2004-09-15 13:11

Anonymous wrote:Grub is the only thing that get's installed from the new debian-installer disk right now... well, I download it a couple weeks ago, and I think that, eventually, you are supposed to be able to choose between grub and lilo, but if you were willing to set up a new system (and test the new installer while you're at it) the debian-installer should get grub up and running for you.

When you are prompted if you want to install grub you can choose "cancel" or "back" (forgot which it is) and will then be able to choose lilo. I was having problems with grub (always have) and had to use lilo to complete the installation on my laptop.

mzilikazi · #7 Post by **mzilikazi** » 2004-09-16 02:44

Personally I have no use for LILO what so ever. It's rather limited in what it can do. I never was comfortable with rewriting your MBR everytime you add a new kernel.

When you install a new kernel (if you use Debian kernels or make-kpkg anyway) it updates /boot/grub/menu.lst automatically. It doesn't have to rewrite anything except the configuration file for GRUB. The fact that GRUB has a command line seals the deal for me. You can boot most anything w/ GRUB. If you hose up lilo.conf your screwed! You'll need Knoppix or Toms rtbt or similar to chroot into your install and fix lilo. Not true w/ GRUB. Simply edit the ofending line.

jsumners · #8 Post by **jsumners** » 2004-09-16 13:22

I have found that LILO actually boots the machine more consistently than Grub. Grub just randomly stops working in my experience and since I never use it I have no idea how to make it work again once it does break. So, LILO for me.

vogella · #9 Post by **vogella** » 2004-09-19 08:56

Hello,

I think the new debian installer (d-i) of the upcoming Sarge uses Grub as default.

http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en. ... 06s03.html

The main i386 boot loader is called ?grub?. Grub is a flexible and robust boot loader and a good default choice for newbies and old hands alike.

Best regards, Lars

drdebian · #10 Post by **drdebian** » 2004-10-09 16:52

jsumners wrote:I have found that LILO actually boots the machine more consistently than Grub. Grub just randomly stops working in my experience and since I never use it I have no idea how to make it work again once it does break. So, LILO for me.

My sentiments exactly. I've had too many problems making Grub boot on software RAID1 systems, where the first disk went faulty and it refused to boot from the second one.

With LiLo, this never was a problem thanks to the "raid-extra-boot" directive, which allows multiple copies of the MBR to be written to all members of a RAID-array.

So, cutting a long story short, it's LiLo for me also.

Guest · #11 Post by **Guest** » 2004-11-15 11:37

grub is the nice swiss knife you bless when troubles come if kernels and initrd are messed.

* Just 2 entries: /vmlinuz and /vlinuz.old saves you if a new kernel breaks something.
* No need to re-run lilo. Want to change boot splash-image? just copy it. Even you can do it in "hot"
* Built-in command line
* I said it, it is the swiss knife you can trust. Even you can cat a file!
* You can install it on a usb pendrive or floppy and forget it.

For the guy with raid1: you can install it on both hd's mbr. For the other one with problems swaping drives: yes, it can do it. And it is the present and future, is where linux is going, all distros are with it, it's superior tech.

And it's GNU

Roeland · #12 Post by **Roeland** » 2004-11-15 12:12

Well, why should you mess-up your initrd and kernel stuff

. It's not like everybody compiles kernels on daily basis (well, not many Debian folks do so).

I'm happy with LILO and I won't use grub until my next Debian install, which probably will be some years from now

Edit: By the way, since when the world got lazy all the sudden? Have heard the 'you don't need to run the lilo command after making changes, w00t' argument so many times, it gets a bit scary... Don't tell me typing one little command is too much a stress factor after configuring and compiling a new kernel...

-Roeland

chimaera · #13 Post by **chimaera** » 2004-11-16 09:19

in fact, it's not stress, but something you might forget. and then:
"err.. where was that install disk.. mhh.. boot to recue. damn, forget to change bios settings to boot from cd. ok, well. mhh. passed the wrong device to root=. ah, it just took 29 reboots, now it's fixed!"
well. that surely would've never happened with grub for you can do just anything 'on-the-fly'. if you're updating your kernel on a regular basis and have a bunch of ditros in your system just out opf plain curiosity, grub is the way to go. but then again, well. that's all imho of course

Roeland · #14 Post by **Roeland** » 2004-11-16 09:21

I use my PC to be productive, not to use 10 distros and to bake a kernel every day

. Can imagine some people do

-Roel

chimaera · #15 Post by **chimaera** » 2004-11-16 09:42

so do i, but i want to stay in touch with latest developments..

Roeland · #16 Post by **Roeland** » 2004-11-16 11:55

chimaera wrote:so do i, but i want to stay in touch with latest developments..

Not every new kernel patch is useful for every system and every situation, so one upgrade per stable kernel release will do.

-Roel

chimaera · #17 Post by **chimaera** » 2004-11-16 13:02

i'm using ck-patches, which are cranked out in serveral releases per kernel release. and it's not just about kernels (in fact, i'm still running 2.6.7-ck6 for issues with cdr / nvidia / usb / wlan-ng / lirc i'm not willing to deal with atm.)

and the other thing was distros. the last weeks i tested ubuntu, slack and arch linux, for me, grub makes it very comfortable to do so.

sure, if you don't do such things, you don't need to care about your bootmanager, probably you don't even care if you have one (although you would if you haven't.. well.) but if you have to touch it every now and then, grub is the way to go. at least for me.

Roeland · #18 Post by **Roeland** » 2004-11-16 13:08

And that, dear people, is the Power of Freedom of Choice.

(I'm using LILO just to boot Debian GNU/Linux, together with FreeBSD (don't use it really) and QNX NC (booted it twice or smthn'

))

-Roeland

chimaera · #19 Post by **chimaera** » 2004-11-16 13:20

true, so very true!

just for the fun of it, let's have one of those kde vs. gnome or <anysanedistro> vs. gentoo discussions

Roeland · #20 Post by **Roeland** » 2004-11-16 14:10

chimaera wrote:true, so very true!

just for the fun of it, let's have one of those kde vs. gnome or <anysanedistro> vs. gentoo discussions

Whelp!

My vote is for Window Maker 0.91.0

-Roeland

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