Two different linux loaders
yan
Now, my question is, which one is better, theorily?
Is there any big difference between the two?
--
------
yan(Linux User #239190)
...
Dream as if you'll live forever,
Live as if you'll die tomorrow
_________________________________
philo
cylinders.
grub has no such limitation
however the newer versions of lilo may no longer have that
limitation...
i'd just use grub...(maybe others could give a bit more info)
Ming He
Ashok Aiyar
Ming He (mi...@hotmail.com) wrote:
> Grub is much much better. Not much differnce to me.
>
Your response puzzles me. On the one hand you say that grub is "much
much better". On the other you say that there isn't "much differnce"
(sic) between lilo and grub.
So why is grub "much much better", and why do all those betterments
not make "much differnce"?
Puzzled and curious,
Ashok
--
Ashok Aiyar
RLU #51601
Ming He
When I say not much different I mean the operation and concept between
lilo and grub.
Again, grub is much much better than lilo. Period.
/ming
Stuart Blake Tener
One nice thing about Grub is that it does not need to be informed when a
new Linux kernel has been built, unlike lilo which must be rerun after every
successful Linux kernel build which is "make install"ed.
Stuart
"yan" <pumal...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9vhd9r$4mi$1...@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca...
Rod Smith
philo <ph...@plazaearth.com> writes:
> originally , lilo could not boot to a partition past 1024
> cylinders.
>
> grub has no such limitation
>
> however the newer versions of lilo may no longer have that
> limitation...
Recent versions of LILO definitely aren't bothered by the 1024-cylinder
limit -- at least, assuming your BIOS is recent enough to support the
necessary calls. (I believe they started appearing in the mid-1990s, so
most BIOSes today should be fine.)
Personally, I've always used LILO, as it seems perfectly adequate. My
system with many OSs, though, uses LILO as a secondary boot loader,
with System Commander as the primary. It's conceivable that GRUB would
do better with more complex setups without using another loader as the
primary one, but I've not looked into GRUB's features enough to know
for sure.
--
Rod Smith, rods...@rodsbooks.com
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux & multi-OS configuration
Ming He
> primary one, but I've not looked into GRUB's features enough to know
> for sure.
>
> --
> Rod Smith, rods...@rodsbooks.com
> http://www.rodsbooks.com
> Author of books on Linux & multi-OS configuration
Since you are author of Linux & multi-OS, you would need to know grub.
Ming He
Grub's config can sitting in many type of file system, *edited from any OS*.
While lilo has to be run from linux.
Just think the following case,
lilo: you are in windows and want to boot to linux, you have to wait on the
console until lilo prompt comes out.
grub: remotely control windows and copy the boot-linux grub config file to the
one that grub will read, reboot, telnet back to linux 3 minites later.
/ming
Rod Smith
In your opinion.
GRUB was pretty new at the time I wrote the book, and IIRC, it wasn't
even included with any Linux distributions back then. Given the amount
of information I had to cover in the book, I didn't see much point in
investigating GRUB in any depth. There are probably a dozen or more x86
boot loaders available, and in that context, GRUB isn't so important
that it's a "need-to-know" item for either multi-booting or Linux.
There are certainly people who think GRUB is the greatest thing since
sliced bread, but that's also true of most other boot loaders.
When you write YOUR book on multi-booting, you're welcome to emphasize
the use of GRUB, if you feel it's so important.
Paul Kimoto
> In article <3C1CF27D...@hotmail.com>,
> Ming He <mi...@hotmail.com> writes:
>> Rod Smith wrote:
>>> I've not looked into GRUB's features enough to know
>>> for sure.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Rod Smith, rods...@rodsbooks.com
>>> http://www.rodsbooks.com
>>> Author of books on Linux & multi-OS configuration
>> Since you are author of Linux & multi-OS, you would need to know grub.
> GRUB was pretty new at the time I wrote the book, and IIRC, it wasn't
> even included with any Linux distributions back then.
In the link from your web page, Fatbrain (a division of Barnes & Noble)
says that your book was published in March 2000.
Accrding to GRUB's NEWS file, the first Linux-booting version came in May
1996. According to the appropriate Debian changelog file, GRUB entered
Debian in 1997.
(I am hoping to use GRUB for the first time this week.)
--
Paul Kimoto
This message was originally posted on Usenet in plain text. Any images,
hyperlinks, or the like shown here have been added without my consent,
and may be a violation of international copyright law.
cbbr...@acm.org
> In article <3C1CF27D...@hotmail.com>,
> Ming He <mi...@hotmail.com> writes:
> > Rod Smith wrote:
> >
> >> primary one, but I've not looked into GRUB's features enough to know
> >> for sure.
> >
>
> In your opinion.
> GRUB was pretty new at the time I wrote the book, and IIRC, it
> wasn't even included with any Linux distributions back then. Given
> the amount of information I had to cover in the book, I didn't see
> much point in investigating GRUB in any depth. There are probably a
> dozen or more x86 boot loaders available, and in that context, GRUB
> isn't so important that it's a "need-to-know" item for either
> multi-booting or Linux. There are certainly people who think GRUB
> is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but that's also true of
> most other boot loaders.
> When you write YOUR book on multi-booting, you're welcome to
> emphasize the use of GRUB, if you feel it's so important.
I wouldn't be so dumb as to suggest that it should have been a
spectacular priority 'way back when; that would be historical
revisionism.
Grub is now, however, somewhat more important than it was then.
-> It's the default bootloader for Red Hat
-> It's the default bootloader for Mandrake
-> It's certainly available for other big names like Debian and SuSE.
I'd think that if you want to maintain that having written a book on
boot loaders provides some expertise, it's _probably_ of some value to
keep up with the ones that are important _now_.
GRUB is definitely more featureful than LILO, and thus arguably
better; it may not have been a "need to know" thing in 1999, but I'd
say it probably is now...
--
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http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/linux.html
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go,
because, man, they're gone.
Rod Smith
Certainly.
> I'd think that if you want to maintain that having written a book on
> boot loaders provides some expertise, it's _probably_ of some value to
> keep up with the ones that are important _now_.
I've never written a book on boot loaders; I've written a book on
multi-boot configurations. There's one chapter (of 23) on boot loaders
in the book. (The book's Web page, at
http://www.rodsbooks.com/multiboot/, includes a chapter list.)
> GRUB is definitely more featureful than LILO, and thus arguably
> better; it may not have been a "need to know" thing in 1999, but I'd
> say it probably is now...
I disagree with that assessment, at least for Linux in general. It's
quite possible to use Linux without GRUB. Personally, I've never felt
compelled to learn much about GRUB, because LILO (particularly in
conjunction with System Commander, which I use on my system that boots
the most OSs) does the job just fine. Now, that said, if I were to do a
revision of my multi-boot book today, I'd certainly take the time to
research GRUB and give it more than the passing mention it's got in the
current edition. Such a revision isn't in the works, though, and I've
got other demands on my time.
cbbr...@acm.org
> In article <eLbT7.7480$J%2.48...@news20.bellglobal.com>,
> cbbr...@acm.org writes:
> > GRUB is definitely more featureful than LILO, and thus arguably
> > better; it may not have been a "need to know" thing in 1999, but I'd
> > say it probably is now...
> I disagree with that assessment, at least for Linux in general. It's
> quite possible to use Linux without GRUB.
Not if you're a newbie who takes the default installation of RHAT or
Mandrake, as they default to use GRUB.
The _compelling_ reason to prefer GRUB over LILO is most pointed in
multi-boot configurations:
-> You can reconfigure GRUB using a text editor on whichever OS you
are using, whereas
-> You need to boot Linux in order to reconfigure LILO.
If you've got a broken Linux boot configuration, the latter could be
somewhat problematic.
--
(concatenate 'string "aa454" "@freenet.carleton.ca")
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linuxdistributions.html
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
Rod Smith
Paul Kimoto <kim...@lightlink.com> writes:
> In article <4j9jv9...@speaker.rodsbooks.com>, Rod Smith wrote:
>
>> GRUB was pretty new at the time I wrote the book, and IIRC, it wasn't
>> even included with any Linux distributions back then.
>
> In the link from your web page, Fatbrain (a division of Barnes & Noble)
> says that your book was published in March 2000.
Keep in mind that the publication date is several months after the
writing date. I don't recall the precise dates, but most or all of the
book was written in late 1999. This is actually pretty quick, too. Even
in the computer field, many books are written half a year or more
before publication. They typically take several months to write, as
well.
> Accrding to GRUB's NEWS file, the first Linux-booting version came in May
> 1996. According to the appropriate Debian changelog file, GRUB entered
> Debian in 1997.
I wasn't aware it was quite that old. Although I'd dabbled with Debian
at that time, I wasn't using it a lot. Rather, I was using Red Hat,
Mandrake, and perhaps Caldera. My RH 6.2 (from 2000) CD-ROM doesn't
seem to have GRUB; and my late-1999 Caldera 2.3 and Mandrake 6.1
CD-ROMs also lack GRUB, although Mandrake 7.0 (from January of 2000)
has it. (It's possible GRUB was on an extras CD-ROM or RH's contrib FTP
site or the like, though.) Clearly, in late 1999, GRUB had a limited
presence in the Linux community, at least as measured by inclusion on
Linux CD-ROMs. It's only in the last two years that GRUB has started to
become popular. Thus, not covering it in my book (except for a passing
reference or two) made sense in 1999, since the book was not
Linux-centric and included coverage of several other boot loaders,
including LILO, System Commander, BootMagic, IBM's Boot Manager, and
NT/Win2K's OS Loader. There just wasn't pageage to devote to what was,
at the time, a little-used niche boot loader. If my crystal ball had
told me that GRUB would become as popular as it is now, I might have
included more coverage of it. Maybe I should just throw out the crystal
ball and start reading tea leaves instead.... ;-)
Rod Smith
cbbr...@acm.org writes:
> rods...@speaker.rodsbooks.com (Rod Smith) writes:
>> In article <eLbT7.7480$J%2.48...@news20.bellglobal.com>,
>> cbbr...@acm.org writes:
>> > GRUB is definitely more featureful than LILO, and thus arguably
>> > better; it may not have been a "need to know" thing in 1999, but I'd
>> > say it probably is now...
>
>> I disagree with that assessment, at least for Linux in general. It's
>> quite possible to use Linux without GRUB.
>
> Not if you're a newbie who takes the default installation of RHAT or
> Mandrake, as they default to use GRUB.
"Need" has a precise and strong definition: "A requirement, necessary
duty or obligation, or a lack of something wanted or deemed necessary."
(The Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 1981.) GRUB is not a need in
the sense of being a requirement or necessity, nor is knowledge of it
needed, even for a newbie, because LILO is available and is easily
selected, even in RH and Mandrake. Of course, it's LIKELY that a newbie
WILL select GRUB instead of LILO because it IS the default; but that
doesn't make it necessary.
If you disagree with me on this minor point, we'll just have to agree to
disagree.
> The _compelling_ reason to prefer GRUB over LILO is most pointed in
> multi-boot configurations:
> -> You can reconfigure GRUB using a text editor on whichever OS you
> are using, whereas
> -> You need to boot Linux in order to reconfigure LILO.
>
> If you've got a broken Linux boot configuration, the latter could be
> somewhat problematic.
There are various ways around this problem, like using Windows-based
ext2fs utilities or emergency Linux boot floppies. What's more, in my
experience, the only boot problems that could be worked around by
reconfiguring a boot loader are things that are easily handled by a few
simple precautions, like not destroying a working LILO boot record when
adding a new one. Reconfiguring the boot loader won't help a badly
misconfigured SysV setup, for instance. Of course, that said, the
ability to reconfigure the boot loader outside of Linux IS an
advantage.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that GRUB isn't better than LILO or
isn't worth knowing. I'm just saying that LILO is still a very adequate
boot loader for many purposes, and I PERSONALLY haven't felt LILO to be
so inadequate (especially in conjunction with other tools that I use)
to make it worthwhile to invest much time in experimenting with GRUB.
What's more, I've learned from hard experience that idly twiddling with
boot loader configurations can occasionally cause problems that can
take hours to unravel, so I'm a bit reluctant to take the risk of
encountering problems unless it really is necessary.