[ale] GRUB issue on boot

James Sumners james.sumners at gmail.com
Thu Apr 13 22:19:03 EDT 2006


I still don't see how any of that matters when all you want to do is
boot your machine. Why would I want to do "boot-time alterations"? I
don't even know what that is supposed to mean. I also don't know what
a "multiboot kernel" is. I have done some searching and can't come up
with a definition. So there is another thing that really doesn't
matter in regard to just loading the OS. Doing a search for "multiboot
lilo" seems to generate results that indicate LILO supports this
mysterious feature as well.

Also, the bootloader having an interactive shell for editing its
config and rewriting it to the bootsector is useless when the
bootloader won't load. If I'm not mistaken, that was the problem that
started this thread - Grub not loading.

All of your "features" are pretty, but they don't really mean much for
a production system that just needs to boot. Chances are, that machine
won't be booting so much that it needs all the fancy features of Grub
its bootloader.

On 4/13/06, Michael B. Trausch <fd0man at gmail.com> wrote:
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> James Sumners wrote On 04/13/2006 06:33 PM:
> > I don't see what is so inflexible about LILO. It does its job. Plain and simple.
> >
>
> You can't do dynamic things with LILO.  LILO allows you to do one task,
> and only one task:  Boot one or more systems that have their own boot
> loaders; or, boot Linux.  It only does that one task, without any
> flexibility for boot-time alterations to what it knows how to do.  You
> cannot switch out the kernel file or the initrd file without telling it
> that they changed, because LILO doesn't know how to read a filesystem.
> LILO uses a program run in userspace, post-boot, that tells the boot
> sector what sectors to read to get its information and boot.
>
> The GRUB, on the other hand, can boot Linux, custom boot sector
> programs, and Multiboot kernels.  It has a shell so that you can try to
> diagnose problems or reinstall without booting into the operating
> system.  It allows you to boot new systems without configuring the
> entries in the boot config, if you so wish.  You can change the files it
> loads and boots out from under it without it getting surprised, since it
> can read filesystems.  It's a powerful, and flexible boot loader.
>
> The only thing that would top either, is the replacement of the BIOS,
> which is starting to finally happen, with EFI.  Once EFI is covered
> across all levels of PC class machines, the world will be a better
> place, at least IMHO.
>
>         - Mike
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--
James Sumners
http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
CH:D 59



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