Re: lilo removal in squeeze (or, "please test grub2")

[Daniel Barclay <daniel@fgm.com>]

Stan Hoeppner wrote:

> The
> problem, in and of itself, is booting.  Period.  There is [no] way to test it
> but to replace LILO with Grub2 and see if the system boots afterward.  I
> cannot do this on production servers, obviously.  Cloning drives to play with
> on a lab machine would be a good idea, but I can't take production servers
> offline to clone the disks.  

How about temporarily booting from an alternate partition, disk, etc?

For example:
1.  Install a second instance of your current LILO installation on some
    other boot device.
  - Then boot from that device to make sure that booting from that
    device can boot your system normally.  If not, boot from your normal
    boot partition, try to fix that second LILO installation, and
    try again.  Once it works, proceed to step 2.


2.  Install Grub2 on the main boot device.
  - Try booting.
  - If doesn't work, reboot from the device with the backup LILO
    installation in step one and try to fix the Grub2 installation,
    and try again.  Once it works, you're done.

Actually, you'd probably want to install the new loader (Grub2) on
an alternative device first, so your system by default would still
boot using the old boot loader setup.  Then, when you think you have
your Grub2 configuration worked out, create and test the LILO backup
boot device as above, and install Grub2 on your main boot device.  If
it works, you're done;  if it doesn't, you can reboot from the LILO
backup boot device to work on your main-device Grub2 installation.


That takes several reboots rather than just one, but then it means
you're never more than one reboot away from a working system, rather
than possibly dead in the water until you can figure out and fix
whatever the problem is (either by fixing the Grub2 problem or by
booting enough (viaa rescue disc) to re-install your LILO
configuration.


Daniel