Re: Updating the system - Debian newbie needs help

[Matthew Dalton <matthewd@research.canon.com.au>]

Didi Damian wrote:
> Maybe fixing LILO to boot both sytems would work too but I never tried it. Alternatively,
> you could boot one of the systems from floppy. 

I boot 3 different linux partitions (Slackware, RH5.2 and Debian 2.1)
and Win95 from LILO. It's a bit of a hack... I used the LILO on the
RH5.2 partition to manage everything. I first mounted the slackware and
debian partitions somewhere in my RH tree. The lilo.conf wants to know
the location of the kernels for each partition on that partition, so I
stuck symlinks into the RH tree to the kernels on the mounted slack and
debian partitions in the places where the kernels would be if the
slack/debian partion was mounted on root. A diagram:

In my debian partition:
/boot/slink-2.0.36 is the kernel
In my slackware partition:
/vmlinuz is the kernel

In the RH partition I have the following symlinks:

/boot/slink-2.0.36 -> /mnt/linux/debian/boot/slink-2.0.36
/vmlinuz -> /mnt/linux/slack/vmlinuz

(assuming /mnt/linux/debian and /mnt/linux/slack as the mount points)

Then in the lilo.conf for the RH partition I have:
for debian: /boot/slink-2.0.36
for slackware: /vmlinuz

With the symlinks in place and all partitions mounted, LILO can find the
kernels as required. Since the paths are correct for each individual
partition, LILO will be able to find the kernels it needs when you
select a particular partition at boot up.

Have fun!
Matthew