Re: Does lilo still have a limit on it's menu entries?
On Saturday 29 September 2007 01:54, C. G. Montgomery wrote:
> In linux.debian.user Nigel Henry wrote:
> > I read a while back that earlier versions of lilo could only have 6
> > entries on the menu. My lilo version is 1:22.6.1-9.3.
>
> I think it may not be a limit on the number of lilo entries. Not long
> ago, an upgrade to 2.6.21-2-k7 was done on a machine of mine. This put
> the initrd.img, System.map, and vmlinuz files into /boot but didn't
> change lilo.conf. In fact I decided to stay with the kernel I had been
> using, so it's just waiting there. I don't know whether grub is handled
> differently.
I had the same when I installed the 2.6.18-5-686 kernel. The files were
in /boot, but /etc/lilo.conf hadn't been updated, therefore running lilo did
nothing. I commented out the stanzas for the bf2 kernel, and added the
stanzas for the new 2.6.18-5 one, ran lilo, and now it's on lilo's menu.
The reason I asked about the 6 menu items limit was because I seem to remember
that during the adding of new kernels previously, that apt-get would prompt
you for lilo, mentioning something about the boot block, and if you wanted to
run lilo, and install it in the MBR. Now my lilo's arn't in the MBR, but in
the / partition for my 2 Debian installs on this drive. Grub for FC2 is in
the MBR, as it is the 1st Linux install on the drive. Not wishing Grub to be
replaced, I said no to the apt-get yes/no request, and ran lilo after the
install had completed. Now that I've effectively removed the references to
the bf2 kernel I may remove this latest kernel, and try reinstalling it, just
to see if I get this prompt for lilo with apt-get.
Regarding Grub. At least on Fedora it works fine, and all kernel updates are
added to it's menu. You can add as many kernels as you like. I suspect after
a while you get a scroll bar to look through them. Saying that though, with
fedora I also use Apt, but if you use Yum, which is the default package
manager on Fedora, it only keeps 2 kernels as default, but you can change
that behaviour so that all kernels are saved. Personally I think it's best
that all kernels are saved, then you can decide which ones are no longer
required.
>
> > The original kernel when I installed Woody 3.0r2 was a bf one. It is
> > still listed in /boot, and on lilo's menu. but is nowhere to be seen in
> > synaptic, and no longer will boot with Etch. On the face of it, I can't
> > see how to remove this original boot floppy kernel.
> >
> > Can I just delete all references to the 2.4.18-bf2.4 kernel in /boot?
> > Then run lilo again. It seems a bit of a hack, but I can't see any way
> > around it as synaptic doesn't even list the bf kernel, and you can't
> > uninstall something that's not on the list.
>
> Yes, I've done just that to get rid of old kernels. Just edit lilo.conf
> to include only the stanzas you want and run lilo.
As I mention above I commented out the stanzas for the bf2 in /etc/lilo.conf,
and renamed the bf2 files in /boot. I'll clean that up later on as everything
appears to be working ok now.
>
> hth cgm
Thanks for your reply.
Nigel.
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