Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

Instructions for making a lilo boot floppy for a system with DOS on 
/dev/hda1, BL3 on /dev/hda2 and BL2 on /dev/hda3, with kernel image file 
named zimage.

1.  Boot to ext2 BL3 (or BL2) with loadlin from DOS.

2.  Copy files needed for lilo into /boot and /sbin:
Insmod the three modules needed to mount a CD and mount Slackware 4.0 (or 
3.X) CD, and copy lilo.tgz to /tmp.
tar -zxvf  lilo.tgz (unless you remember how to extract single files).
mkdir /boot
cp /tmp/boot/chain.b /boot
cp /tmp/boot/boot.b /boot
Copy zimage from DOS to /boot
cp /tmp/sbin/lilo to /sbin/lilo

(Or install lilo.tgz if you want a lot of documentation.  Maybe Steven 
would be willing to post lilo, chain.b and boot.b for BL3.40).

3. cd /etc
pico lilo.conf
(Do not copy anything in parentheses)

boot=/dev/fd0    (or boot=/dev/hda to install to hard disk)
prompt           (gives you a LILO boot: prompt)

install=/boot/boot.b (this may be a default and not be needed)
(default=DOS      - this did not work, it just waits at the prompt - do I 
also need timeout=50 for 5 sec wait?)

#DOS
other=/dev/hda1   (boot from DOS in C:)
table=/dev/hda    (location of partition table)
label=DOS

#BL3
image=/boot/zimage  (location of kernel image)
label=BL3
root=/dev/hda2
read-write         (if you leave this out you can't write to BL3)
(optionally also things like vga=ask, or vga=788 for framebuffer)

#BL2
image=/boot/zimage  (should there be a copy in BL2 or just BL3?)
label=BL2
root=/dev/hda3
read-only       (this line may be optional and a default)

Ctrl-X to save it in BL3 /etc/lilo.conf

Type

lilo -v   (to use default locations of lilo.conf etc.)

You will see:

Reading boot sector from /dev/fd0   (or /dev/hda?)
VGS:  Busy inodes on changed media.
(I seem to be having floppy controller problems here because I also had 
trouble umounting the floppy disk after installing lilo).
Merging with /boot/boot.b
Boot other:  /dev/hda1, on /dev/hda, Added DOS, loader /boot/chain.b
(I may not have typed this exactly)
Boot image: /boot/zimage
Added BL3
Boot image: /boot/zimage
Added BL2
/boot/boot.0200 exists - no backup copy made
Writing boot sector.

(The backup copy stuff is because I redid the same floppy disk.  It is a 
backup of the MBR of the floppy disk to ext2 hard disk BL3 
/boot/boot.0200.  I hope in the case of hard disk MBR there is also the 
usual backup so fdisk /MBR will undo lilo).

I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and it booted as usual but instead of booting DOS 
automatically I got a prompt:

LILO boot:

Nothing happens unless I type something.  How do I get DOS to act as 
default?  I specified default=DOS, and the first listed OS was supposed to 
be default by default.  Should I add timeout=50 or does that reboot in 5 
seconds?

LILO or loadlin BL3 boots in about 8-9 seconds on my 700MHz computer.

I don't see any need to install lilo to the MBR of the hard disk since it 
would not boot appreciably faster, but if I wanted to, would I simply 
change the first line in lilo.conf from /dev/fd0 to /dev/hda (or 
/dev/sda for scsi drive)?  If it works from floppy disk, can I do any 
damage installing to HD MBR if I don't NT or Win2000 or later, or OS/2?

I will try lilo on the SCSI-only computer.

Another problem:

BL3 when booting complains about a bad superblock in /dev/hdb4 (BL2) and 
so does manually run e2fsck (even with alternate superblocks) on this and 
other computers.  But I can boot or chroot to /dev/hdb4.

This is the BL3.40 e2fsck (libc5) June 24 1997.  The BL2 one won't run in 
BL3, wrong library.

I rebooted with ramdisk BL2 (from hard drive) and copied over ext2 BL2 
e2fsck, which complained that libext2fs.so.2.4 was too old (18 Jul 1999) 
so I copied to ramdisk the ext2 BL2 libext2fs.so.2.4 (April 2000) and ran 
e2fsck /dev/hdb4 (BL2) from ramdisk BL2, and it is 'clean'.

Could someone else confirm this problem?  Maybe I have not fully installed 
BL3.40 over the old BL3.32 and have a leftover e2fsck or library.

Thanks for the help with lilo.  I still don't know how Steven's 2-floppy 
BL3 installs itself from ramdisk.

Sindi