Hubert Thanks, that makes sense. I guess its time I DID read up on Lilo, and will look up your reference. Thanks Wayne Subject: [S.u.S.E. Linux] Re: SuSE Linux evaluation (Part 3) Date: Tue, Feb 03, 1998 at 12:43:59AM +0100 In reply to:Hubert Mantel Quoting Hubert Mantel (mantel@suse.de):

Hi,

On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Wayne Topa wrote:

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From Page 123 of SuSE 5.1 book, Section 8.3.4

QUOTE

"ANY part of LILO has to be on the first 1024 cylinders on the hard disk."

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From Yast.debug "/dev/hda3 * 977 977 1518 256095 83 Linux native"

Consider how LILO works: When you install LILO, it generates a map-file /boot/map which holds the CHS-position (cylinder/head/sector) of all the files needed for booting. This is the second stage loader /boot/boot.b and the kernel image /vmlinuz itself. Because LILO has to do all of its work by BIOS means it is restricted to cylinder numbers less than 1024.

If you have a partition setup like above with the partition starting at 977 and ending at 1518, results are unpredictable. If all of /boot/map, /boot/boot.b and /vmlinuz happen to sit on cylinders below 1024, LILO will work without problems because every needed sector can be loaded with BIOS calls. If one single sector is on a cylinder >= 1024, LILO will fail.

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Yes I could put the kernel on hda1. BUT I have the SuSE kernel where the BOOK says it should work. Lilo 19 DID work with the Debian kernel on hda3 (start cylinder 977), so is the problem with lilo 20?

No. You simply had luck when installing debian. Probably debian uses another installation order so all the relevant files for booting happened to sit on cylinders below 1024. If you had recompiled your kernel, there had been chances for LILO to fail afterwards.

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Which statement is true: All of the kerner MUST be on cylinders < 1024, (BB) OR ANY part of the kernel has to be on the FIRST 1024 cylinders??? (Book)

I think this is a problem with a foreign/other/strange/alien/unknown language ;-) The book should probably read "EVERY part of the kernel...". And additionally: "This is true for the files /boot/boot.b and /boot/map also". Please note that /boot/map is generated when LILO is installed.

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Thanks for your help. Chus (Is that spelled right ?)

Wayne

Hubert

PS: If you are interested in how LILO and bootmanagers work, there is an excellent documentation in /usr/doc/packages/lilo.

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