Setting LILO as bootmanager with SuSE Linux 8.1
I have tried today to get my main system up and running with SuSE Linux 8.1 - with no success. My other systems where the bootmanager don´t matter run fine, but on this system I absolutely need to use LILO as boot manager, since it is a mixed IDE/SCSI system where I need to insert lines with 'bios = xxxxx' to make it work. I don´t how to do that with grub if it is possible at all. All I know is that the default grub setup made by the installation did *not* work. I come from SuSE Linux 7.3 where it was easy to make changes in the boot manager setup through YaST. With SuSE Linux 8.1 it is completely confusing with /etc/sysconfig containing a lot of files that don´t have mentionings of the possible settings for parameters in their comments - and I don´t see any mentioning of how to set up LILO as boot manager in the "Administration Guide" either. I have removed grub, inserted the /etc/lilo.conf file that worked on my previous setup on this system and I have run /sbin/lilo. That did not work. I don´t get any error codes at boot (LI, LIL and so on), so I don´t know what is wrong. What should I do to set up LILO as boot manager? Best regards, David List
On Fri, 2002-12-13 at 23:23, David List wrote: [snip]
What should I do to set up LILO as boot manager?
My experience from installing SuSE 8.1 Pro from scratch is that
LILO was used by the installer and that the YaST2 config tool only
knows about LILO (to install, configure etc.).
I had to write the menu.lst by hand and install grub to get rid of
LILO. Grub is capabe of changing the bios id's as well you know.
From the grub info pages:
<quote>
map
---
- Command: map to_drive from_drive
Map the drive FROM_DRIVE to the drive TO_DRIVE. This is necessary
when you chain-load some operating systems, such as DOS, if such
an OS resides at a non-first drive. Here is an example:
grub> map (hd0) (hd1)
grub> map (hd1) (hd0)
The example exchanges the order between the first hard disk and the
second hard disk. See also *Note DOS/Windows::.
</quote>
HTH
Warm Regards,
--
Anders Karlsson
-----Original Message----- From: Anders Karlsson [mailto:anders.karlsson@meansolutions.com] Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2002 8:43 AM To: SuSE general (E-mail) Subject: Re: [SLE] Setting LILO as bootmanager with SuSE Linux 8.1
My experience from installing SuSE 8.1 Pro from scratch is that LILO was used by the installer and that the YaST2 config tool only knows about LILO (to install, configure etc.).
That was certainly not my experience and I understand from all the SuSE documentation I´ve read that grub *is* the default bootloader with 8.1.
I had to write the menu.lst by hand and install grub to get rid of LILO. Grub is capabe of changing the bios id's as well you know.
From the grub info pages: <quote> map ---
- Command: map to_drive from_drive Map the drive FROM_DRIVE to the drive TO_DRIVE. This is necessary when you chain-load some operating systems, such as DOS, if such an OS resides at a non-first drive. Here is an example:
grub> map (hd0) (hd1) grub> map (hd1) (hd0)
The example exchanges the order between the first hard disk and the second hard disk. See also *Note DOS/Windows::. </quote>
I still would like to use lilo, but I´ll look into that. Thank you for your answer. Best regards, David List
On Saturday 14 December 2002 00.23, David List wrote:
I have removed grub, inserted the /etc/lilo.conf file that worked on my previous setup on this system and I have run /sbin/lilo.
That should be enough. How about posting the lilo.conf you're using so the list has a chance to see what's wrong?
-----Original Message----- From: Anders Johansson [mailto:andjoh@rydsbo.net] Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2002 12:05 PM To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: [SLE] Setting LILO as bootmanager with SuSE Linux 8.1
On Saturday 14 December 2002 00.23, David List wrote:
I have removed grub, inserted the /etc/lilo.conf file that worked on my previous setup on this system and I have run /sbin/lilo.
That should be enough. How about posting the lilo.conf you're using so the list has a chance to see what's wrong?
The file worked with SuSE Linux 7.3. Things must be a tad different with SuSE Linux 8.1. After removing all SCSI boot options from the system´s BIOS, I got the initial bootloader screen with the different options inserted in /etc/lilo.conf (only two in my case). I also got the first few boot lines. Then kernel panic arose. Here are the last few lines from the boot: ================================================================== Freeing initrd memory: 138k freed VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem). kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k block-major-8, errno = 2 VFS: Cannot open root device "803" or 08:03 Please append a correct "root=" boot option Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:03 ================================================================== The line that says: 'VFS: Mounted root (ext filesystem).' strikes me, since the only ext2 I have set up on this system during installation is the /boot partition on /dev/sda1. All other partitions are ReiserFS. Is that an indication of what goes wrong? Here is my /etc/lilo.conf: ===================================================== append="hdc=ide-scsi noapic" boot=/dev/hda disk = /dev/hda bios = 0x80 disk=/dev/sr0 bios = 0x81 disk = /dev/sdc bios = 0x82 disk = /dev/sda bios = 0x83 disk = /dev/sdb bios = 0x84 vga = 775 read-only menu-scheme = Wg:kw:Wg:Wg lba32 prompt timeout = 50 message = /boot/message image = /boot/vmlinuz label = SuSE root = /dev/sda3 initrd = /boot/initrd optional other = /dev/hda1 label = Win2k ====================================================== Here is my /etc/fstab: ====================================================== /dev/hda1 /winc auto noauto,user 1 2 /dev/sda3 / reiserfs defaults 1 1 /dev/sda1 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/sdc1 /home reiserfs defaults 1 2 /dev/sdb1 /usr reiserfs defaults 1 2 /dev/sda2 swap swap pri=42 0 0 devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs noauto 0 0 /dev/cdrecorder /media/cdrecorder auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 /dev/dvd /media/dvd auto ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0 /dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto noauto,user,sync 0 0 ======================================================== Best regards, David List
On Saturday 14 December 2002 14.59, David List wrote:
The file worked with SuSE Linux 7.3. Things must be a tad different with SuSE Linux 8.1. After removing all SCSI boot options from the system´s BIOS, I got the initial bootloader screen with the different options inserted in /etc/lilo.conf (only two in my case). I also got the first few boot lines. Then kernel panic arose. Here are the last few lines from the boot:
================================================================== Freeing initrd memory: 138k freed VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem). kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k block-major-8, errno = 2 VFS: Cannot open root device "803" or 08:03 Please append a correct "root=" boot option Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:03 ==================================================================
The line that says: 'VFS: Mounted root (ext filesystem).' strikes me, since the only ext2 I have set up on this system during installation is the /boot partition on /dev/sda1.
I believe the "root" it is talking about is the initial ramdisk. It uses an ext2 file system.
All other partitions are ReiserFS. Is that an indication of what goes wrong?
Device 08:03 is /dev/sda3. I'm willing to bet that the problem is your initrd. Do you have "reiserfs" listed in the INITRD_MODULES variable in /etc/sysconfig/kernel. Do you have the scsi driver needed to use the sda disk? Did you run "/sbin/mk_initrd"? Anders
-----Original Message----- From: Anders Johansson [mailto:andjoh@rydsbo.net] Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2002 3:11 PM To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: [SLE] Setting LILO as bootmanager with SuSE Linux 8.1
I'm willing to bet that the problem is your initrd. Do you have "reiserfs" listed in the INITRD_MODULES variable in /etc/sysconfig/kernel. Do you have the scsi driver needed to use the sda disk? Did you run "/sbin/mk_initrd"?
That was it. Yesterday I followed the instructions given here: http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/fhassel_grub_lilo.html but somehow the INITRD_MODULES parameter was emptied during my fight to get this working. I inserted reiserfs, ncr53c8xx and ide-scsi, ran mk_initrd and lilo, rebooted and the system came up in a perfect condition. Thank you very much for your help. Best regards, David List
participants (3)
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Anders Johansson -
Anders Karlsson -
David List