Re: lilo: liloconfig doesn't make the system bootable

[Joost Kooij <kooij@mpn.cp.philips.com>]

On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Paul Slootman wrote:

> On Tue 17 Mar 1998, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 17, 1998 at 09:55:49AM +0100, Dietmar Block wrote:
> > > > Lilo install (liloconfig) does NOT make the system bootable. I
> > > > think it doesn't install mbr properly.
> > > > 
> > > > I've installed a few systems (with bo & hamm disks) and noone
> > > > booted without manual help. I know how to install mbr manually, but
> > > > others can just say "Debian broke my computer".
> > > 
> > > I guess the problem is that Liloconfig produces a config-file including the
> > > line
> > > 
> > > boot=/dev/hda2 (in my case)
> > > instead of 
> > > boot=/dev/hda
> > > 
> > > I think liloconfig sets 'boot' to the same value as 'root'.  
> > 
> > Hasn't lilo always done this in Debian? You need to make the Debian
> > partition active to boot it first.
> 
> Yes, but that doesn't work in the case of a "virgin" disk, i.e. without
> any dos / whatever primary boot block, which is what looks at what the
> active partition is and then boots that. Try it with a disk that's been
> clobbered with "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda count=100"; install debian
> on that, and watch how it fails to boot after installation.
> 
> This does indeed need to be fixed.

I think /usr/sbin/liloconfig does get it right:

if ( &askn("Install a master boot record on ", $disk) ) {
        print "Installing MBR on $disk\n";
        system("dd if=/boot/mbr.b of=$disk bs=444 count=1");

The /boot/mbr.b file is in package mbr.

To get things right, you have to know either:
- that you can use the lilconfig script, which is not really obvious to
  newbies. It is a pretty straightforward perl script and reading it and
  part of the lilo(8) and lilo.conf(5) manpages is quite educating.
- just about _everything_ you can find in the lilo documentation, because
  that documentation is not exactly a jewel of clarity (you do get to
  learn a lot from reading it, just a pity that you'll need the knowledge
  only a few times thereafter.)

Cheers,


Joost


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org