[SWLUG] lilo headache

[Robert McQueen]

On Wed, Dec 18, 2002 at 05:20:06PM +0000, vlado wrote:
> but check for appropriate append statement,
> from memory it should be something like 
>    image = /boot/vmlinuz  # your zImage file
>    root = /dev/hda2     # partition containing the kernel
>    label = Red Hat Linux        # name to appear on menu
>    append = "root=/dev/hda3" #the boot parameters for your linux kernel
> but I'm not sure100% about the last line syntax (don't ask me to get the
> man pages for lilo please). Anyway you will need that line to tell the
> kernel that it needs to mount /dev/hda3 on /
> Regards,
> Vlado

No, the 'root = /dev/hda2' line is built-in to lilo, and does what you
think that 'append...' line would do. It's just a convenience thing,
because everyone needs to tell the kernel where the root partition is.

LILO will load the kernel image off whatever partition it ends up being
on when it looks it up through the filesystem. For example, if you mount
your Red Hat system in /rh and your Red Hat /boot in /rh/boot, you could
do:
 image = /rh/boot/vmlinuz
 root = /dev/whatever-the-redhat-root-is (hda3?)
 label = Red Hat Linux

And this should work. However, if you change your /boot/vmlinuz file
from within Red Hat, you will have to reboot into SuSE to be able to
re-run lilo in order to be able to boot RedHat again. Theoretically you
could have a complementary LILO/partition set-up under Red Hat so you'd
be able to install LILO from either distro without rendering either
unbootable.

Regards,
Rob