GRUB vs. LILO
Just a question. . . Which is better? My config is three hard drives: IBM IDE 120GB with nothing on it and no format WD SATA 250GB with WinXP on 150GB partition with an unformatted 100GB partition WD SATA 74GB with SuSE 9.
Just a question...
Which is better?
My config is three hard drives:
IBM IDE 120GB with nothing on it and no format
WD SATA 250GB with WinXP on 150GB partition with an unformatted 100GB partition
WD SATA 74GB with SuSE 9.1 64-bit installed...
I originally installed SuSE with GRUB on the 120GB drive...and it worked....as long as I wanted to get into SuSE....but if i select WinXP it stops...some error message comes up that is Linux related...
I guess my question is should I use Lilo or Grub (I plan to add more OSes later) i.e. which is more configurable? Second should whichever I use go on the same drive as the Linux partitions? The error comes up even if I have the 120GB first in the boot order then the 74GB then the 250GB...
Which is better?
My config is three hard drives:
IBM IDE 120GB with nothing on it and no format
WD SATA 250GB with WinXP on 150GB partition with an unformatted 100GB partition
WD SATA 74GB with SuSE 9.1 64-bit installed...
I originally installed SuSE with GRUB on the 120GB drive...and it worked....as long as I wanted to get into SuSE....but if i select WinXP it stops...some error message comes up that is Linux related...
I guess my question is should I use Lilo or Grub (I plan to add more OSes later) i.e. which is more configurable? Second should whichever I use go on the same drive as the Linux partitions? The error comes up even if I have the 120GB first in the boot order then the 74GB then the 250GB...
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which is better ?
it depends, mainly from you ;-)
I prefer GRUB very much over LILO because I hate the need for a dedicated install step ( call "lilo" ). And LILO will not accept any modification as soon as the system has been shut down. If you configured somthing wrong then you're lost during the next boot.
Trying different boot options may become a nightmare...
GRUB is totally different - as long as you understood how it works basically - so it is very much recommended to read the good manual !
After this you just need one small bootpartition where the different GRUB files reside plus the configuration file "menu.lst" and you're done (btw. a separate boot partition is recommended for LILO too).
Any misconfiguration happend occasionally ?
No prob, boot, go into GRUB's edit-mode ( "ESC" ) and change whatever you need to - then go ahead with "b" for boot.
You can even boot a system without a boot entry at all - just a few command line entries.
But you need to understand how it works - so if you're not keen to learn too much about it it's probably the best to follow your distro's default.
One last remark for GRUB newbies - take special care about the different naming of harddisks used by GRUB in opposit to Linux:
GRUB Linux
hd0 hda
hd0,0 hda1
hd1,1 hdb2
etc. etc. - in the command mode GRUB lists you nearly everything - so make a bootdisk an play a bit with it, you will have a lot of options and flexibility by far much more than with the good old LILO.
But one question remains: is it worth ? The answer depends from you.
it depends, mainly from you ;-)
I prefer GRUB very much over LILO because I hate the need for a dedicated install step ( call "lilo" ). And LILO will not accept any modification as soon as the system has been shut down. If you configured somthing wrong then you're lost during the next boot.
Trying different boot options may become a nightmare...
GRUB is totally different - as long as you understood how it works basically - so it is very much recommended to read the good manual !
After this you just need one small bootpartition where the different GRUB files reside plus the configuration file "menu.lst" and you're done (btw. a separate boot partition is recommended for LILO too).
Any misconfiguration happend occasionally ?
No prob, boot, go into GRUB's edit-mode ( "ESC" ) and change whatever you need to - then go ahead with "b" for boot.
You can even boot a system without a boot entry at all - just a few command line entries.
But you need to understand how it works - so if you're not keen to learn too much about it it's probably the best to follow your distro's default.
One last remark for GRUB newbies - take special care about the different naming of harddisks used by GRUB in opposit to Linux:
GRUB Linux
hd0 hda
hd0,0 hda1
hd1,1 hdb2
etc. etc. - in the command mode GRUB lists you nearly everything - so make a bootdisk an play a bit with it, you will have a lot of options and flexibility by far much more than with the good old LILO.
But one question remains: is it worth ? The answer depends from you.
Thanks. That it what I thought. I want to work with it a bit and realize I can pretty much recover from mistakes in GRUB....
One question is that I want to install Linspire 4.5 as one of my distros....I know it pretty much overrides everything else or did they fix that in 4.5? Also if I install it on my IDE hard drive all by itself can I still use grub to boot the computer then get to the sole partition and installation on that single drive without corrupting everything else?
One question is that I want to install Linspire 4.5 as one of my distros....I know it pretty much overrides everything else or did they fix that in 4.5? Also if I install it on my IDE hard drive all by itself can I still use grub to boot the computer then get to the sole partition and installation on that single drive without corrupting everything else?
Originally posted by mjwebb007:
Quote:Thanks. That it what I thought. I want to work with it a bit and realize I can pretty much recover from mistakes in GRUB....
One question is that I want to install Linspire 4.5 as one of my distros....I know it pretty much overrides everything else or did they fix that in 4.5? Also if I install it on my IDE hard drive all by itself can I still use grub to boot the computer then get to the sole partition and installation on that single drive without corrupting everything else?
Yes, grub is good in this respect. You can edit it at the boot menu and test settings to see if it works.
In terms of Linspire, I suggested not installing it right now, as it will over write your MBR with Lilo. There is no fix, this is what Lindows does. It is designed to be the main distro on the system and makes the decision to install lilo on the mbr, regardless. This is a feature for users who are not going to multiboot anything except Linspire and Windows. You can choose to install it later on when your current system is totally bootable, by disconnecting all your sata drives and doing the install. I do not recommend doing this anytime soon, since you need to solve your current boot issues with grub and sata.
The issue with sata drives, I am just learning (I have one on one of my boxes now) is that there is no master/slave assignment to sata drives. So, you can't expect that drive designations will be straightforward as ide drives.
You need to come up with one plan and stick to it. Don't keep changing boot options and orders of the drives. We need to see what Suse is seeing right now, related to your sata drives.
Please do this. Go to /boot/grub in Suse and open up the menu.lst file. Post what that says so we can look at it.
Also, get to a terminal window and type in df (hit the enter key). Post what this says on this thread also, so we can see what suse is seeing your drives at currently.
Quote:Thanks. That it what I thought. I want to work with it a bit and realize I can pretty much recover from mistakes in GRUB....
One question is that I want to install Linspire 4.5 as one of my distros....I know it pretty much overrides everything else or did they fix that in 4.5? Also if I install it on my IDE hard drive all by itself can I still use grub to boot the computer then get to the sole partition and installation on that single drive without corrupting everything else?
Yes, grub is good in this respect. You can edit it at the boot menu and test settings to see if it works.
In terms of Linspire, I suggested not installing it right now, as it will over write your MBR with Lilo. There is no fix, this is what Lindows does. It is designed to be the main distro on the system and makes the decision to install lilo on the mbr, regardless. This is a feature for users who are not going to multiboot anything except Linspire and Windows. You can choose to install it later on when your current system is totally bootable, by disconnecting all your sata drives and doing the install. I do not recommend doing this anytime soon, since you need to solve your current boot issues with grub and sata.
The issue with sata drives, I am just learning (I have one on one of my boxes now) is that there is no master/slave assignment to sata drives. So, you can't expect that drive designations will be straightforward as ide drives.
You need to come up with one plan and stick to it. Don't keep changing boot options and orders of the drives. We need to see what Suse is seeing right now, related to your sata drives.
Please do this. Go to /boot/grub in Suse and open up the menu.lst file. Post what that says so we can look at it.
Also, get to a terminal window and type in df (hit the enter key). Post what this says on this thread also, so we can see what suse is seeing your drives at currently.
