[olug] howto boot multiple linux partitions?

[Brian Roberson]

When you installed suse, you should of installed the boot loader on the
partition ( /dev/hda7 ) instead of not at all.... this way when you told
lilo under knoppix to try the loader on /dev/hda7 there was actually a
bootstap loader there...

or, from knoppix

mount /dev/hda7 somewhere
edit /etc/lillo.conf
and basically duplicate your knoppix entries pointing to whereever you
mounted /dev/hda7.


the main difference between grub and lilo is grub only loads itself into the
bootsector and from there knows how to read filesystems natively and loads
the kernel straight from disk.
lilo on the other hand loads not only its own bootloader, but also the
kernel ( and initrd if needed ) into the boot sector ( which is why you have
to re-run lilo after installing new kernels )



what you are trying to do is definately doable with lilo - a few different
ways - grub just exposes this possibility better.





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Wiese" <bwiese at cotse.com>
To: "Omaha Linux User Group" <olug at olug.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: [olug] howto boot multiple linux partitions?


> Yeah, I gave up on Lilo - couldn't find anything really online that would
> support this, grub looks like it can though.
>
> Lilo has a global definition of what 'boot=' and what 'root=', so having
> different kernel images on different partitions (different root /) -- I
> don't think would work.  In grub you can specify the root partition and
> corresponding image to load for each boot choice, so it looks like that
> would work... will play more later.
>
> On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 07:10:36 -0800 (PST)
> Terry <td3201 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> |Suse usually installs the boot information to a /boot
> |partition.   Also, you may want to give grub a try.
> |
> |You will want to try to use the image= parameter for
> |your Linux OS's.  Leave the other to 'other' systems:
> |image=/dev/hda6 (/boot partition of Linux OS or
> |wherever the boot information is stored)
> |
> |
> |--- Brian Wiese <bwiese at cotse.com> wrote:
> |> I hope someone at least on the list has tried this
> |> before, I'm in need of
> |> some guidance... multiboot still confuses me...
> |>
> |> I have Windoze (hda1) and Knoppix (hda6) installed
> |> on my laptop and am
> |> booting with LILO installed to the mbr (hda).  From
> |> /etc/lilo.conf
> |>
> |> boot=/dev/hda
> |> root=/dev/hda6
> |> ...
> |>
> |> I have another spare extended partition (hda7) that
> |> I would like to
> |> install another gnu/linux distro onto (SuSE or
> |> Gentoo), and of course
> |> still be able to boot my other two OSs.
> |>
> |> fdisk -l shows: hda1, hda6, hda7 all set with the
> |> "Boot" flag
> |> (were set using cfdisk, and again using fdisk -- but
> |> doesn't seem to
> |> modify the partition, the first sector of hda7 is
> |> all 0's?)
> |>
> |> I tried an install of SuSE (hda7) the other day, and
> |> told it not to
> |> overwrite my mbr, and so I went into Knoppix to
> |> change my /etc/lilo.conf
> |> to give me a boot option to boot that parition with:
> |>
> |> other=/dev/hda7
> |>   label="SuSE"
> |>
> |> I run /sbin/lilo to save changes (and this gets
> |> re-written to the mbr?),
> |> but it errors out with:
> |>
> |> Fatal: First sector of /dev/hda7 doesn't have a
> |> valid boot signature.
> |>
> |> So how do I do this?  I have hda7 toggled as
> |> bootable in fdisk, but the
> |> error is correct, my first sector of /dev/hda7 is
> |> all zeros.
> |> (dd if=/dev/hda7 of=hda7.s1 bs=512 count=1)
> |>
> |> I also notice that even though hda2 is not bootable
> |> (simple FAT32 data
> |> paritition), it has some boot signature text on its
> |> first sector saying
> |> "its not a bootable parition".  So all these windows
> |> partitions can still
> |> 'boot' and lilo doesn't have problems, how can I
> |> make multiple paritions
> |> boot linux?
> |>
> |> -- 
> |> Brian Wiese          "What we do in life, echoes in
> |> eternity."
> |> bwiese(at)cotse.com  gpg: 0x2FD6AF16    keyserver:
> |> pgp.dtype.org
> |> phone: 402.932.5490  aim: unolinuxguru
> |> www.unomaha.edu/~bwiese
> |>
> |----------------------------------------------------------------
> |>
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> |>
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> |
> |=====
> |Terry
> |
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>
> -- 
> Brian Wiese          "What we do in life, echoes in eternity."
> bwiese(at)cotse.com  gpg: 0x2FD6AF16    keyserver: pgp.dtype.org
> phone: 402.932.5490  aim: unolinuxguru  www.unomaha.edu/~bwiese
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