Re: lilo installation on IDE disk > 500 megabytes

[bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

From: Charles Blair <c-blair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
> I am trying to install the 7-14-96 debian release on a machine
> with over 500 megabytes on an IDE hard disk.

Well, if LILO will work at all with the default configuration that you get
when you install the package, you are probably safe, since only _one_
cylinder extends beyond 1024. Only a fraction of one percent of your disk
blocks are in that cylinder, and it is unlikely that the kernel will land
on one. If that's the case, it would be best for you stop here rather than
trying any of the following.

I solved this problem by creating a small partition for my "/", separate from
the one for "/usr". All of that partition was below the 1023rd cylinder, and
all of the files that LILO needed fit in it. Then the lilo configuration that
the package creates automaticaly will always work.

If you want to run LILO on the /dos partition, I think the /etc/lilo.conf
file should look like this:

	boot=/dev/hda1 (block device for /dos)
	root=/dev/hda2 (block device for linux "/")
	compact
	install=/dos/boot/boot.b (make sure this file is there)
	map=/dos/boot/map (this will be created there)
	vga=normal
	prompt
	image=/dos/vmlinuz (make sure this is there too)
	label=Linux
	read-only

Then, make sure to make the DOS partition as the boot partition using
fdisk. This will make it impossible to boot DOS without a floppy.
That's one reason it might be better to create a separate small root
partition for Linux.

Thanks

Bruce