How do I get the mbr package to do its job quietly?

[Stephen Powell <zlinuxman@wowway.com>]

I have been experimenting with the mbr package.  (mbr is a dependency for
the lilo package; so if you have lilo installed you have mbr package installed
too.)  I usually install lilo to the master boot record (boot=/dev/hda
specified in /etc/lilo.conf).  But in certain situations it is advantageous to
install lilo to the boot sector of a primary partition (boot=/dev/hda1) and
install a DOS-like master boot record program in the master boot record,
making the partition containing the lilo boot loader the active partition.

For example, on some of our Dell servers one can bring up a "boot menu" via
the BIOS setup program by pressing F12 during the POST process.  (This is during
POST and before the actual boot process.)  Upon completion of POST, the "BIOS
boot menu" (not to be confused with the boot menu of any boot loader) will
be displayed.  One of the choices in this BIOS boot menu is "Boot to Utility
Partition", or something like that.  This boots a maintenance partition
containing some hardware testing programs supplied by Dell.  This works fine
if the master boot record is a standard DOS/Windows-style master boot record,
but does not work with Linux-style boot loaders, such as grub or lilo.
Of course, I can always add the maintenance partition to the lilo boot
menu, but our non-Linux-proficient technicians aren't used to this.  I
want a Linux box to look just like a Windows box as viewed by a service
technician.

I could use DOS or Windows to install its master boot record program
with "fdisk /mbr" or fixmbr, or whatever, depending on the release of
DOS or Windows, and set the Linux partition active, and that works.  But
Microsoft may claim that this means that our box requires a license
for DOS or Windows.  I'd hate to burn a Windows license just to get its
master boot record installed, when that's all I'm using.  It would seem that
the mbr package in Debian GNU/Linux is just the ticket for this sort of
problem.  I have run the "install-mbr" program, and it works just as
expected.  There is just one little nit left that I would like to take
care of.  lilo advertises itself by printing out "LILO" on the screen
prior to booting the Linux kernel.  That's fine.  I want to see that.
mbr also advertises itself by printing out "MBR" on the screen when it
boots.  So what I see at boot time is something like this:

   MBR

   LILO 22.8 Loading Linux
   BIOS data check successful

and then the Linux kernel boot messages.  That's tolerable, but I'd
like that "MBR" advertisement to be eliminated.  I read the man page
for install-mbr, and I can see how to eliminate the boot prompt,
which I have done, but I couldn't find a way to suppress the MBR
advertisement.  The DOS/Windows mbr program is totally silent, a trick
that I would like to teach this program.  Does anyone know of a way
to accomplish this?  Or is this just something I have to live with?

-- 
  .''`.     Stephen Powell    <zlinuxman@wowway.com>
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