On 06/18/2013 11:35 AM, Gary Dale wrote:
On 18/06/13 10:35 AM, Lars Noodén wrote:On 06/18/2013 05:03 PM, Dirk wrote:you are clearly talking out of your ass... a boot loader doesn't need features other than loading the kernel... what crucial work do you do with the features of grub? spreadsheets?presentations? project managing? or do you play it like a text adventurefiguring out what the grub rescue console actually does? *primitive is the best thing about lilo*... if you don't realize that then you don't care if a part as stupid as the boot loader doesn't work... because you have alternatives to linux..Having just involuntarily bumped into the grub rescue console, I can say that LILO was much easier to work with and to figure out. In the case of grub I eventually had to give up and nuke the MBR from the rescue mode of the installation CD. grub is complex, grub2 more so. Regards, /LarsWhen GRUB came out, it's best feature was that you didn't need to update it every time you installed a new kernel - something that LILO required. With GRUB2, we're back to needing to update the boot loader when the kernel changes.
This is not true at all. No need to reinstall GRUB at any point and in many distributions who simply install a kernel under a single name (In arch, for example, kernel image filenames aren't versioned. So upgrading a kernel all you have to do is reboot to use the new kernel.), the configuration needs no updating either. It's only on systems like DEBIAN which does things in package management in overly verbose and complicated ways that GRUB has to be reconfigured just to use a new kernel. In this case it's less on GRUB and how the distribution installs its kernel and initramfs images.
Yes, I know that Debian does this so you can fall back on an older kernel if you need, but that's a separate issue. I'm just pointing out the downside of that is GRUB will have to be informed every time the kernel is upgraded.
The other features you need in a boot loader is that it works on everything, and you need it to fail gracefully into a mode where you can fix the problems that are preventing the system from booting.
GRUB 2 does this... but its recovery console is next to unusable. It's better to use a LiveCD or something, chroot onto your installed system, and reinstall/reconfigure grub. Last I heard LILO didn't even have much in the way of recovery tools.
Unfortunately, there is also now the UEFI problem to consider. Now boot loaders have to contend with security checks enforced by the hardware.
Thanks to Microsoft's Windows 8 "sticker standard" SecureBoot can be turned off on all Windows8-based x86 systems that have it. If you don't want to contend with it, then turn it off. Bootloaders don't have to contend with security at all unless you don't know how to turn off SecureBoot.
Primitive no longer cuts it. What you need is a boot loader that can handle all the crap that gets thrown at it. The boot loader that does it best wins.
On UEFI systems, use rEFInd (Even better: Use rEFInd to load the kernel directly to boot itself.). On MBR systems GRUB still does it better than LILO.