Re: Switch to LILO from Grub2 ?
On Sun, 15 May 2011 15:09:24 -0400 (EDT), Russell Gadd wrote:
> On 14 May 2011 21:59, Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de> wrote:
>>
>> This will definitely not work. LILO stores the location of kernels
>> (their sectors on the disk) in a map file, and if you move those around
>> it won't be able to find them anymore.
>> ...
>
> Thanks Sven, most useful. I had a look at the website I mentioned
> which gives a LILO guide and if I decide to delve more into one of the
> boot loaders it looks like LILO will probably be more manageable for
> me. However at present I'll spend my time on other tasks and take the
> easy way out and reinstall the system where necessary.
If I recall correctly, when GRUB2 is installed in the boot sector
of a primary partition (as opposed to the master boot record), it
uses a similar technique to that used by LILO: it reads a list of
blocks. So cloning the partition (i.e. moving it or copying it
to a different physical location) without re-running the boot loader
installer to update the list of blocks will not work. If it does work,
it is due to the fact that it is reading the old blocks which are
still intact, but outside the partition. When GRUB2 is installed
in the master boot record, it can read the kernel image and the
initial RAM file system image by reading the file system. It doesn't
need a list of blocks. But to do so it stores extra code in
unallocated sectors outside the master boot record. GRUB version 1
is able to read the kernel image file and initial RAM file system
image file via the file system even if it is installed in a partition
boot sector. I don't know where it hides the file system code, but
that space is apparently too small for GRUB2 to use.
So, for what you are trying to do, GRUB2 won't work and LILO won't
work either. extlinux might work. I don't know. Try it and see.
But it requires the partition be ext2 or ext3, I think. extlinux
won't work with other file systems (reiser, xfs, etc.)
--
.''`. Stephen Powell
: :' :
`. `'`
`-
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