m.skoric@eunet.yu
This version of Lilo mini-HOWTO is based on work of Cameron Spitzer
(cls@truffula.sj.ca.us
) and Alessandro Rubini
(rubini@linux.it
). There are also contributions from Tony Harris
(tony@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
) and Marc Tanguy
(tanguy@ens.uvsq.fr
). Well, I have used materials from
the authors mentioned - without changes - and added some pointers
related to configuring LILO for using with Windows NT and Windows 2000.
More detailed information about the activation of Windows NT/2000 from LILO
menu, you may find in wonderfull
Linux+WindowsNT mini-HOWTO.
hdc
to Boot as hda
and Using bios=
Although the documentation found in Lilo's sources (the one installed
in /usr/doc/lilo
-version) is very comprehensive, most Linux
users experience some trouble in building their own
/etc/lilo.conf
file. This document is meant to support them
by giving the minimal information and by showing five sample
installations:
/dev/hdc
that will boot as /dev/hda
.
This is usually needed when you install a new Linux drive from
your own running system. This also tells how to boot from SCSI
disks when your BIOS is modern enough.
The last three examples are by Cameron, cls@truffula.sj.ca.us
,
who wrote the original document. Alessandro rubini@linux.it
doesn't run anything but Linux, so he can't check
nor update them by himself. Needless to say, any feedback is welcome.
When Lilo boots the system, it uses BIOS calls to load the Linux kernel off the disk (IDE drive, floppy or whatever). Therefore, the kernel must live in some place that can be accessed by the bios.
At boot time, Lilo is not able to read filesystem data, and any
pathname you put in /etc/lilo.conf
is resolved at
installation time (when you invoke /sbin/lilo). Installation
time is when the program builds the tables that list which sectors are
used by the files used to load the operating system. As a consequence,
all of these files must live in a partition that can be accessed by
the BIOS (the files are usually located in the /boot
directory, this means that only the root partition of your Linux
system needs to be accessed via the BIOS).
Another consequence of being BIOS-based is that you must reinstall the loader (i.e., you must reinvoke /sbin/lilo) any time you modify the Lilo setup. Whenever you recompile your kernel and overwrite your old image you must reinstall Lilo.
The boot=
directive in /etc/lilo.conf
tells Lilo where
it should place its primary boot loader. In general, you can either
specify the master boot record (/dev/hda
) or the root
partition of your Linux installation (is usually is /dev/hda1
or /dev/hda2
).
If you have another operating system installed in your hard drive, you'd better install Lilo to the root partition instead of the MBR. In this case, you must mark the partition as ``bootable'' using the ``a'' command of fdisk or the ``b'' command of cfdisk. If you don't overwrite the master boot sector you'll find it easier to uninstall Linux and Lilo if needed.
Of course, you always have a way to avoid some "rules" like above. Well,
you may install Lilo to the MBR even if you already have another operating
system installed there. For example, if you installed Windows NT 4.0 as the
first operating system on your machine, then NT's boot loader was placed into
the MBR so you were able to boot NT without problems. After you installed
Linux and chose to install Lilo to the MBR, Lilo rewrote NT's boot loader.
Next time you boot your machine, you won't be able to boot NT. But, that
is no problem. You should edit your /etc/lilo.conf
and add a new
entry for NT. Next time you re-boot your system, there will be the new
added NT entry under Lilo menu. The same thing happened when I installed
Windows 2000 instead of Windows NT.
I personally don't use LBA or LARGE settings in the BIOS (but I only run Linux); they are horrible kludges forced on by design deficiencies in the PC world. This requires that the kernel lives in the first 1024 cylinders, but this is not a problem as long as you partition your hard drives and keep root small (as you should do anyways).
If your hard disk already carries another operating system, you won't be able to modify the BIOS settings, or the old system won't work any more. All recent Lilo distribution are able to deal with LBA and LARGE disk settings.
Note that the "linear"
keyword in /etc/lilo.conf
can
help in dealing with geometry problems. The keyword instructs Lilo to
use linear sector addresses instead of sector/head/cylinder tuples.
Conversion to 3D addresses is delayed to run-time, therefore making
the setup more immune to geometry problems.
If you have more than one hard disk and some of them are only used by Linux and are not involved in the boot process, you can tell your BIOS that they are not installed. Your system will boot more quickly and Linux will autodetect all the disks in no time. I often switch disks in my computers, but I never touch the BIOS configuration.
When you see the Lilo prompt, you can hit the <Tab> key to show the list of possible choices. If Lilo is not configured to be interactive, press and hold the <Alt> or <Shift> key before the ``LILO'' message appears.
If you choose to boot a Linux kernel, you can add command-line arguments after the name of the system you choose. The kernel accepts many command-line arguments. All the arguments are listed in the ``BootPrompt-HOWTO'' by Paul Gortmaker, and I won't replicate it here. A few command line arguments, however, are particularly important and worth describing here:
root=
: you can tell the Linux kernel to mount as root
a different partition than the one appearing in /lilo.conf
.
For example, my system has a tiny partition hosting a minimal Linux
installation, and I've been able to boot the system after
destroying my root partition by mistake.
init=
: version 1.3.43 and newer of the Linux kernel can
execute another command instead of /sbin/init,
as specified on the command line. If you experience bad problems
during the boot process, you can access the bare system by
specifying init=/bin/sh
(when you are at the shell
prompt you most likely will need to mount your disks: try
``mount -w -n -o remount /; mount -a'',
and remember to ``umount -a'' before turning off
the computer).
/etc/inittab
and to /etc/rc*.d
to probe further.
When Lilo overwrites a boot sector, it saves a backup copy in
/boot/boot.
xxyy, where xxyy are the major and minor
numbers of the device, in hex. You can see the major and minor numbers
of your disk or partition by running ``ls -l
/dev//device''. For example, the first sector of
/dev/hda
(major 3, minor 0) will be saved in
/boot/boot.0300
, installing Lilo on /dev/fd0
creates
/boot/boot.0200
and installing on /dev/sdb3
(major
8, minor 19) creates /boot/boot.0813
. Note that Lilo won't
create the file if there is already one so you don't need to care about
the backup copy whenever you reinstall Lilo (for example, after
recompiling your kernel). The backup copies found in /boot/
are always the snapshot of the situation before installing any Lilo.
If you ever need to uninstall Lilo (for example, in the unfortunate
case you need to uninstall Linux), you just need to restore the
original boot sector. If Lilo is installed in /dev/hda
, just
do ``dd if=/boot/boot.0300 of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1''
(I personally just do ``cat /boot/boot.0300 > /dev/hda'',
but this is not safe, as this will restore the original partition table as
well, which you might have modified in the meanwhile). This command is
much easier to run than trying ``fdisk /mbr'' from a DOS
shell: it allows you to cleanly remove Linux from a disk without ever
booting anything but Linux. After removing Lilo remember to run Linux'
fdisk to destroy any Linux partition (DOS' fdisk is unable to remove non-dos partitions).
If you installed Lilo on your root partition (e.g., /dev/hda2
),
nothing special needs to be done to uninstall Lilo. Just run Linux'
fdisk to remove Linux partitions from the partition
table. You must also mark the DOS partition as bootable.
Notice: If you find the next section difficult to read, you may
also look for the web page:
http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/partition/ramdisk.html
where you would find the "original" of this contribution ...
by Tony Harris
16 Oct 2000
ram disk eenie-weenie HOWTO
If your root file system is on a device for which your kernel has no
compiled-in driver, you will need to use lilo
to load that driver
as a module very early in the boot cycle.
There are only two easy steps:
lilo.conf
to point to the image
First, I cd over to /boot
:
System.map chain.b module-info-2.2.16-3ext3 System.map-2.2.16-3 initrd-2.2.16-3.img vmlinux-2.2.16-3 System.map-2.2.16-3ext3 vmlinux-2.2.16-3ext3 vmlinuz kernel.h boot.b map vmlinuz-2.2.16-3 bz.2.2.15.juke.Image module-info vmlinuz-2.2.16-3ext3 bzImage-2.2.14 module-info-2.2.16-3
Here you can see that I have a 2.2.16-3 kernel and I have added a
second kernel with ext3 support (vmlinuz-2.2.16-3ext3
). There is
already a ram disk image for my first kernel (initrd-2.2.16-3.img
)
To make a new image for the second kernel, I type the following (stuff I type is in bold):
boot# mkinitrd initrd-2.2-16-3ext3.img 2.2.16-3ext3
mkinitrd
is a shellscript that looks at the modules needed by my
kernel, then makes an ext2 filesystem containing them.
If we look inside the image we see this is the case:
boot# cat initrd-2.2.16-3ext3.img | gunzip > /tmp/myimage
boot# file /tmp/myimage
/tmp/myimage: Linux/i386 ext2 filesystem/
You do not have to look inside your image. Only making the image and
modifying lilo.conf
are necessary steps. However, discussion of
the ramdisk image is provided for pedagogic purposes.
In order to look inside, I need to mount the image as though it were a filesystem:
boot# mount /tmp/myimage /mnt/tmp -t ext2 -o loop=/dev/loop3
boot# ls /mnt/tmp
bin dev etc lib linuxrc
boot# find /mnt/tmp
mnt/tmp/
mnt/tmp/lib/
mnt/tmp/lib/aic7xxx.o/
mnt/tmp/bin/
mnt/tmp/bin/sh/
mnt/tmp/bin/insmod/
mnt/tmp/etc/
mnt/tmp/dev/
mnt/tmp/dev/console/
mnt/tmp/dev/null/
mnt/tmp/dev/ram/
mnt/tmp/dev/systty/
mnt/tmp/dev/tty1/
mnt/tmp/dev/tty2/
mnt/tmp/dev/tty3/
mnt/tmp/dev/tty4/
mnt/tmp/linuxrc/
The most important part of this ram disk image is aic7xxx.o
,
which is my scsi module.
Finally, I move on to the last step, modifying /etc/lilo.conf
:
Here is my entry in lilo.conf
that corresponds to the kernel and
image I just created:
image=
boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-3ext3/
label=linux.ext3
initrd=
boot/initrd-2.2.16-3ext3.img/
read-only
root=
dev/hdb3/
That's it. Run /lilo as root and reboot.
If you have problems, check out the kernel HOWTO
. There are a
couple things you need to have covered: you need your kernel modules
compiled and living in /etc/conf.modules
.
Most Lilo installations use a configuration file like the following one:
boot = /dev/hda # or your root partition delay = 10 # delay, in tenth of a second (so you can interact) vga = 0 # optional. Use "vga=1" to get 80x50 #linear # try "linear" in case of geometry problems. image = /boot/vmlinux # your zImage file root = /dev/hda1 # your root partition label = Linux # or any fancy name read-only # mount root read-only other = /dev/hda4 # your dos partition, if any table = /dev/hda # the current partition table label = dos # or any non-fancy name
You can have multiple ``image'' and ``other'' sections if you want. It's not uncommon to have several kernel images configured in your lilo.conf, at least if you keep up to date with kernel development.
If you compile a ``zImage'' kernel and it is too big to fit in half a
megabyte (this is commong with new 2.1 kernels), you should build a
``big zImage'' instead: ``make bzImage
''. To boot a big
kernel image nothing special is needed, but you need version 18 or
newer of Lilo. If your installation is older, you should upgrade your
Lilo package.
Here I will give you an order of routines you have to do if you want to have both Linux and NT entries under Lilo menu:
Well, you may use the same procedure as described above.
I suggest you to read Linux+WinNT
mini-HOWTO that also talks
about booting Windows 2000, which is installed on the same part of disk
where Windows NT was before. There you'll find many useful details
regarding various Linux+WinNT/2000/98 combinations.
hdc
to Boot as hda
and Using bios=
Lilo allows to map the kernel image from one disk and instruct the
BIOS to retrieve it from another disk. For example, it's common for me
to install Linux on a disk I connect to hdc
(master disk of
secondary controller) and boot it as a standalong system on the primary
IDE controller of another computer. I copied the installation floppy
to a tiny partition, so I can run chroot in a virtual
console to install hdc
while I use the system to do something else.
The lilo.conf file I use to install Lilo looks like:
# This file must be used from a system running off /dev/hdc boot = /dev/hdc # overwrite MBR of hdc disk = /dev/hdc # tell how hdc will look like: bios = 0x80 # the bios will see it as first drive delay = 0 vga = 0 image = /boot/vmlinux # this is on /dev/hdc1 root = /dev/hda1 # but at boot it will be hda1 label = Linux read-only
This configuration file must be read by a Lilo running off
/dev/hdc1. The Lilo maps that get written the boot sector
(/dev/hdc
) must refer to the files in /boot
(currently installed as hdc); such files will be accessed under hda
when this disk will be booted as a standalone system.
I call this configuration file /mnt/etc/lilo.conf.hdc
(/mnt
is where hdc is mounted during the installation. I
install Lilo by invoking ``cd /mnt; chroot . sbin/lilo -C
/etc/lilo.conf.hdc
''. Refer to the manual page for
chroot if this looks magic.
The ``bios=
'' directive in lilo.conf
is used to tell
Lilo what the BIOS thinks of your devices. BIOS calls identify floppy
disks and hard drives with a number: 0x00 and 0x01 select the floppy
drives, 0x80 and the following numbers select hard disks (old BIOSes
can only access two disks). The meaning of ``bios = 0x80
in
the previous sample file is therefore ``use 0x80 in your BIOS calls
for /dev/hdc
''.
This Lilo directive can be handy in other situations, for example when your BIOS is able to boot from SCSI disks instead of IDE ones. When both IDE and SCSI devices are there, Lilo can't tell whether 0x80 will refer to one or the other because the user is able to choose it in the BIOS configuration menus, and the BIOS can't be accessed while Linux is running.
By default, Lilo assumes that IDE drives are mapped first by the BIOS,
but this can be overridden by using instructions like these in
/etc/lilo.conf
:
disk = /dev/sda bios = 0x80
I have two IDE drives, and a SCSI drive. The SCSI drive can't be seen from BIOS. The Linux Loader, Lilo, uses BIOS calls and can only see drives that BIOS can see. My stupid AMI BIOS will only boot from "A:" or "C:" My root file system is on a partition on the SCSI drive.
The solution consists in storing the kernel, map file, and chain loader in a Linux partition on the first IDE. Notice that it is not necessary to keep your kernel on your root partition.
The second partition on my first IDE (/dev/hda2
, the Linux
partition used to boot the system) is mounted on /u2
. Here
is the /etc/lilo.conf
file I used.
# Install Lilo on the Master Boot Record # on the first IDE. # boot = /dev/hda # /sbin/lilo (the installer) copies the Lilo boot record # from the following file to the MBR location. install = /u2/etc/lilo/boot.b # # I wrote a verbose boot menu. Lilo finds it here. message = /u2/etc/lilo/message # The installer will build the following file. It tells # the boot-loader where the blocks of the kernels are. map = /u2/etc/lilo/map compact prompt # Wait 10 seconds, then boot the 1.2.1 kernel by default. timeout = 100 # The kernel is stored where BIOS can see it by doing this: # cp -p /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage /u2/z1.2.1 image = /u2/z1.2.1 label = 1.2.1 # Lilo tells the kernel to mount the first SCSI partition # as root. BIOS does not have to be able to see it. root = /dev/sda1 # This partition will be checked and remounted by /etc/rc.d/rc.S read-only # I kept an old Slackware kernel lying around in case I built a # kernel that doesn't work. I actually needed this once. image = /u2/z1.0.9 label = 1.0.9 root = /dev/sda1 read-only # My DR-DOS 6 partition. other = /dev/hda1 loader=/u2/etc/lilo/chain.b label = dos alias = m
The contribution from Marc Tanguy (mtanguy@ens.uvsq.fr), 27 Sep 2001
Actually, it exists two ways to know it :
If you have an adaptec scsi card (2940u2, 29160, 39160), you simply use the 'diagnose' mode (using BIOS v3.10.0 recommended). It must be activated in the scsi card BIOS menu. Then you just have to wait and see something like :
... | ID | LUN | Vendor | Product | Rev | Size | Sync | Bus | HD# |
... | 0 | 0 | QUANTUM | ATLAS10K2 | DDD6 | 17GB | 160 | 16 | 80h |
... | 1 | 0 | QUANTUM | ATLAS10K2 | DDD6 | 17GB | 160 | 16 | 81h |
... | 2 | 0 | IBM | DDRS | DC1B | 4GB | 80 | 16 | 82h |
... | 3 | 0 | IBM | DNES | SAH0 | 9GB | 80 | 16 | 83h |
If you don't own an adaptec card, you have to know what is the 'booting' disk (usually ID 0, but not necessary, it can be defined in the scsi card BIOS) where LILO is going to be found and start : this is the first disk so it has number 0x80. Then it's very simple, the BIOS follows the IDs.
By exemple :
ID 0 -> boot -> 0x80 ID 1 -> empty ID 2 -> disk -> 0x81 ID 3 -> disk -> 0x82
or
ID 0 -> disk -> 0x81 ID 1 -> empty ID 2 -> disk -> 0x82 ID 3 -> boot -> 0x80 ID 4 -> disk -> 0x83
This part doesn't care at all of what is installed on the scsi drives. But you should note that if you use an ID higher than the SCSI adapter it c an be a problem. So you should always try to set the SCSI adapter ID after the SCSI devices IDs.
Ok, but NT must be the first disk to boot, so i want it in 0x80, but i already have LILO and a full ext2 only drive on 0x80 and my NT drive is in 0x83. How can i 'swap' linux and NT ? This a very easy : you just have to tell BIOS that NT drive is now 0x80 and the Linux drive is 0x83.
other=/dev/sdd1 label=nt map-drive = 0x83 to = 0x80 map-drive = 0x80 to = 0x83
This change will produce a warning :
Warning: BIOS drive 0x8? may not be accessible
but if you know what you are doing it will run without problem.
I used it on this configuration which has a Red Hat Linux 7.1 and a Windows 2000 Pro :
Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB) Disk Drive: /dev/sda - 0x80 sda1 Boot Primary Linux ext2 [/boot] 24.68 sda2 Primary Linux Swap 139.83 sda3 Primary Linux ext2 [/usr] 3150.29 sda4 Primary Linux ext2 [/home] 15044.04 Disk Drive: /dev/sdb - 0x81 sdb1 Primary Linux Swap 139.83 sdb2 Primary Linux ext2 [/] 3150.29 sdb3 Primary Linux ext2 [/opt] 1052.84 sdb4 Primary Linux ext2 [/public] 14015.88 Disk Drive: /dev/sdc - 0x82 sdc1 Primary Linux ext2 [/var] 1052.84 sdc2 Primary Linux ext2 [/tmp] 106.93 sdc3 Primary Linux ext2 [/cache] 1052.84 sdc4 Primary Linux ext2 [/chroot] 2352.44 Disk Drive: /dev/sdd - 0x83 sdd1 Boot Primary NTFS [WINDOWS_2000] 9162.97
My full /etc/lilo.conf :
boot=/dev/sda map=/boot/map install=/boot/boot.b prompt default=Linux read-only compact image=/boot/vmlinuz label=Linux root=/dev/sdb2 other=/dev/sdd1 label=Windows map-drive = 0x83 to = 0x80 map-drive = 0x80 to = 0x83
I just plugged a new scsi drive, and now LILO refuse to boot, what's going on ?
When you plug a disk, you must be careful with the IDs. If you add a drive between two already plugged disks the BIOS numbers are changed :
Before ----> After scsi id - - BIOS id scsi id - - BIOS id ID 0 - disk - 0x80 ID 0 - disk - 0x80 ID 1 - empty ID 1 - new disk - 0x81 ID 2 - disk - 0x81 ID 2 - disk - 0x82 !!
If you change the BIOS ids, you have to re-evaluate them.
Notice: 1GB is "Huge"? Well, once upon a time...
The system in my office has a 1GB IDE drive. The BIOS can only see
the first 504 MB of the IDE. (Where MB means 2**10 bytes, not 10**6
bytes.) So I have MS-DOS on a 350 MB partition /dev/hda1
and
my Linux root on a 120 MB partition /dev/hda2
.
Hauke Laging laging.de> and Bob Hall hallfire.org> have noticed a small mistake above, so they've suggested a MB to be 2**20 bytes rather than 2**10 bytes. Thanks for correction. In addition, Hauke would like to learn more about what he called, "character codes on LILO startup, when LILO dies with LI, LI-, LIL- or whatever". I'd appreciate a contribution related to this issue or a valid web link to that.
MS-DOS was unable to install itself correctly when the drive was fresh. Novell DOS 7 had the same problem. Luckily for me, "Options by IBM" forgot to put the "OnTrack" diskette in the box with the drive. The drive was supposed to come with a product called "OnTrack Disk Manager." If you only have MSDOS, I guess you have to use it.
So I made a partition table with Linux' fdisk. MSDOS-6.2 refused to
install itself in /dev/hda1
. It said something like ``this
release of MS-DOS is for new installations. Your computer already has
MS-DOS so you need to get an upgrade release from your dealer.''
Actually, the disk was brand new.
What a crock! So I ran Linux' fdisk again and deleted partition 1 from the table. This satisfied MS-DOS 6.2 which proceeded to create the exact same partition 1 I had just deleted and installed itself. MS-DOS 6.2 wrote its Master Boot Record on the drive, but it couldn't boot.
Luckily I had a Slackware kernel on floppy (made by the Slackware
installation program "setup"), so I booted Linux and wrote Lilo over
MS-DOS' broken MBR. This works. Here is the /etc/lilo.conf
file I used:
boot = /dev/hda map = /lilo-map delay = 100 ramdisk = 0 # Turns off ramdisk in Slackware kernel timeout = 100 prompt disk = /dev/hda # BIOS only sees first 500 MB. bios = 0x80 # specifies the first IDE. sectors = 63 # get the numbers from your drive's docs. heads = 16 cylinders = 2100 image = /vmlinuz append = "hd=2100,16,63" root = /dev/hda2 label = linux read-only vga = extended other = /dev/hda1 label = msdos table = /dev/hda loader = /boot/chain.b
After I installed these systems, I verified that the partition
containing the zImage, boot.b, map, chain.b, and message files can use
an msdos file system, as long as it is not "stackered" or
"doublespaced." So I could have made the DOS partition on
/dev/hda1
500 MB.
I have also learned that "OnTrack" would have written a partition table starting a few dozen bytes into the drive, instead of at the beginning, and it is possible to hack the Linux IDE driver to work around this problem. But installing would have been impossible with the precompiled Slackware kernel. Eventually, IBM sent me an "OnTrack" diskette. I called OnTrack's technical support. They told me Linux is broken because Linux doesn't use BIOS. I gave their diskette away.
Next, I installed Windows-95 on my office system. It blew away my nice Lilo MBR, but it left my Linux partitions alone. Kernels take a long time to load from floppy, so I made a floppy with a working Lilo setup on it, which could boot my kernel from the IDE.
I made the lilo floppy like so:
fdformat /dev/fd0H1440 # lay tracks on virgin diskette mkfs -t minix /dev/fd0 1440 # make file system of type minix mount /dev/fd0 /mnt # mount in the standard tmp mount point cp -p /boot/chain.b /mnt # copy the chain loader over lilo -C /etc/lilo.flop # install Lilo and the map on the diskette. umount /mnt
Notice that the diskette must be mounted when you run the installer so that Lilo can write its map file properly.
This file is /etc/lilo.flop. It's almost the same as the last one:
# Makes a floppy that can boot kernels from HD. boot = /dev/fd0 map = /mnt/lilo-map delay = 100 ramdisk = 0 timeout = 100 prompt disk = /dev/hda # 1 GB IDE, BIOS only sees first 500 MB. bios=0x80 sectors = 63 heads = 16 cylinders = 2100 image = /vmlinuz append = "hd=2100,16,63" root = /dev/hda2 label = linux read-only vga = extended other = /dev/hda1 label = msdos table = /dev/hda loader = /mnt/chain.b
Finally, I needed MS-DOS 6.2 on my office system, but I didn't
want to touch the first drive. I added a SCSI controller and
drive, made an msdos file system on it with Linux' mkdosfs, and
Windows-95 sees it as "D:". But of course MSDOS will not boot
off of D:. This is not a problem when you have Lilo. I added
the following to the lilo.conf
in Example 2.
other = /dev/sda1 label = d6.2 table = /dev/sda loader = /boot/any_d.b
With this modification MSDOS-6.2 runs, and it thinks it is on C: and Windows-95 is on D:.
Copyright (c) 2002 by Miroslav "Misko" Skoric.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is available from http://www.fsf.org/licenses/fdl.html.
Use the information in this document at your own risk. I disavow any potential liability of this document. Use of the concepts, examples, and/or other content of this document is entirely at your own risk.
All copyrights are owned by their owners, unless specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements.
You are strongly recommended to take a backup of your system before major installation and backups at regular intervals.
In addition to the Lilo docs, there are a number of mini-howto's that can be useful for your needs. All of them are called ``Linux+foobarOS'', for some foobarOS, they deal with coexistence of Linux and other operationg system(s). For example, "NT OS Loader + Linux mini-HOWTO" by Bernd Reichert, describes how to add an entry for Linux under existing Windows NT Loader's menu. Next, you have "Linux+WindowsNT mini-HOWTO" by myself, covering how to add an entry for NT under existing Linux Lilo menu (more detailed than here). Also, "Multiboot-with-LILO" describes how the various Windows flavours can be made to coexist with Linux.
This mini-HOWTO would be improved from time to time. If you think that the HOWTO on your Linux installation CD is some out-of-date, you may check for newest release on the Internet. It could be found within the main Linux Documentation Project homepage.
This version of mini-HOWTO can thanks to:
Cameron Spitzer (cls@truffula.sj.ca.us)
Alessandro Rubini (rubini@linux.it)
Tony Harris (tony@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu)
Marc Tanguy (mtanguy@ens.uvsq.fr)
Any comments or suggestions can be mailed to my email address: m.skoric@eunet.yu.
These are intended as the primary starting points to
get the background information as well as show you how to solve
a specific problem.
Some relevant HOWTOs are Bootdisk
, Installation
, SCSI
and UMSDOS
.
The main site for these is the
LDP archive
at Metalab (formerly known as Sunsite).
These are the smaller free text relatives to the HOWTOs.
Some relevant mini-HOWTOs are
Backup-With-MSDOS
, Diskless
, LILO
, Large Disk
,
Linux+DOS+Win95+OS2
, Linux+OS2+DOS
, Linux+Win95
,
Linux+WindowsNT
, Linux+NT-Loader
, NFS-Root
,
Win95+Win+Linux
, ZIP Drive
, FBB packet-radio BBS
.
You can find these at the same place as the HOWTOs, usually in a sub directory
called mini
. Note that these are scheduled to be converted into SGML and
become proper HOWTOs in the near future.
In most distributions of Linux there is a document directory installed, have a look in the /usr/doc directory. where most packages store their main documentation and README files etc. Also you will here find the HOWTO archive ( /usr/doc/HOWTO) of ready formatted HOWTOs and also the mini-HOWTO archive ( /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini) of plain text documents.
Many of the configuration files mentioned earlier can be found in the
/etc
directory. In particular you will want to work with the
/etc/fstab
file that sets up the mounting of partitions
and possibly also
/etc/mdtab
file that is used for the md
system to set up RAID.
The kernel source in /usr/src/linux is, of course, the ultimate documentation. In other words, use the source, Luke. It should also be pointed out that the kernel comes not only with source code which is even commented (well, partially at least) but also an informative documentation directory. If you are about to ask any questions about the kernel you should read this first, it will save you and many others a lot of time and possibly embarrassment.
Also have a look in your system log file (
/var/log/messages)
to see what is going on and in particular how the booting went if
too much scrolled off your screen. Using tail -f /var/log/messages
in a separate window or screen will give you a continuous update of what is
going on in your system.
You can also take advantage of the
/proc
file system that is a window into the inner workings of your system.
Use cat
rather than more
to view the files as they are
reported as being zero length. Reports are that less
works well here.
There is a huge number of informative web pages out there and by their very nature they change quickly so don't be too surprised if these links become quickly outdated.
A good starting point is of course the Linux Documentation Project home page, an information central for documentation, project pages and much, much more.
Please let me know if you have any other leads that can be of interest.
In the end you might find yourself unable to solve your problems and need help from someone else. The most efficient way is either to ask someone local or in your nearest Linux user group, search the web for the nearest one.
Another possibility is to ask on Usenet News in one of the many, many newsgroups available. The problem is that these have such a high volume and noise (called low signal-to-noise ratio) that your question can easily fall through unanswered.
No matter where you ask it is important to ask well or you will not be taken seriously. Saying just my disk does not work is not going to help you and instead the noise level is increased even further and if you are lucky someone will ask you to clarify.
Instead describe your problems in some detail that will enable people to help you. The problem could lie somewhere you did not expect. Therefore you are advised to list up the following information on your system:
Remember that booting text is logged to /var/log/messages
which can
answer most of the questions above. Obviously if the drives fail you might not
be able to get the log saved to disk but you can at least scroll back up the
screen using the SHIFT
and PAGE UP
keys. It may also be useful to
include part of this in your request for help but do not go overboard, keep
it brief as a complete log file dumped to Usenet News is more than a
little annoying.