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The Boot Loader Showdown
An anonymous reader writes "What utility do practically all Linux users use, regardless of their job or expertise? A boot loader. In this article from IBM, see how a boot loader works, meet two popular loaders -- LILO (LInux LOader) and GNU GRUB (GRand Unified Boot loader) -- and review the pros and cons of each." From the article: "Most simply, a boot loader loads the operating system. When your machine loads its operating system, the BIOS reads the first 512 bytes of your bootable media (which is known as the master boot record, or MBR). You can store the boot record of only one operating system in a single MBR, so a problem becomes apparent when you require multiple operating systems. Hence the need for more flexible boot loaders.""
On my dual-boot laptop, the virus protection in Windows doesn't recognize Grub, so it will wipe the boot sector if it's the primary boot loader. But I realy like not having to do anything after installing a new kernel, so I want to use Grub.
The solution? Install Grub on the Linux partition, and use Lilo to load it. It is rather funny watching the boot messages go through Lilo to get to Grub.
Until GRUB implements the equivalent of LILO's raid-extra-boot, I'll keep using LILO thankyouverymuch.
I don't understand how GRUB can have gone so long without that feature. I know there are ways to do it (we'll call them work-arounds), but I don't want to have to work around the lack of a feature!
Nothing serious. GRUB doesn't have to be reloaded each time you add or take away a kernel. It's only a 5 second procedure in LILO (or 2-3 minutes if you have to manually monkey with the lilo.conf file). Personally, I prefer LILO for working with kernels because I touch the lilo.conf file each time a kernel is compiled. It makes it easier for me to weed out possible boot-loading problems when I'm making changes to kernel code.
So explain why lilo from slackware 10.2 does work fine but grub from ubunto 5.10 does not?
I would agree with your statement if I saw the same behaivoir in both bootloaders, unfortunately I do not.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There's one key LILO feature missing from GRUB, as far as I know: lilo -R
This allows me to install a new kernel on a box I'm not in front of, and tell LILO to boot it by default for the next boot only. If the new kernel doesn't work, I only have to ask somebody near the machine to reboot it for me, and it'll come back up in my old, working kernel. With GRUB, I'd have to try to talk somebody through hooking up a monitor and picking the right kernel... when it's a headless colocated server located somewhere far away, that's not always an appealing idea.
\\'
If there were two pieces of software which I would say actively ward off more people from installing Linux, it is the boot loader and X video driver config. Both of them can be installed without issue using any standard installer with a user accepting defaults, and the system can fail to boot properly which are very, very poorly documented to debug and repair, especially in a dual-boot scenario. Recently I did a Suse 10 install, and it installed a video driver which even prevented Sax from working. Also, although I installed it on a secondary partition on my primary boot drive, for some reason it decided to install the boot loader on some other drive. Both were a pain to fix, but I wouldnt know how a first-time Linux user would even know where to start.
I like to feel that my computer's components are carrying out their intended functions. Thus, the hard drive stores data, the processor calculates, and the Master Boot Record is in charge of saying what to boot.
GRUB, on the other hand, wants data on my hard drive to be in charge of saying what to boot, and my MBR to point to a certain partition. This to me stinks of hack. I might accept such a thing booting Linux on say, an Xbox (note: xbox linux is actually way more hacky than this), but on a clean computer, there is no real need.
This is all probably just my Slackware approach showing through though, and I certainly do accept all of GRUB's many many advantages, and commend their efforts.
Interesting, the original article by Francesca didn't make it to the front page, but a dupe from the prestigious "anonymous reader" did. This wouldn't have anything to do with the obviously female name, would it? Naah, sure girls can write interesting stuff, but dupes by anonymous submitters are just soooo much more convincing.
There are situations where neither LILO nor GRUB seem to do the job. Here Syslinux can come in very handy. The cool feature of syslinux is that it allows you the ability to run your own custom code to decide which OS should be loaded. Here is an example taken from the syslinux mailing list:
You maintain a bunch of multiboot machines, which should only boot into Windows during some part of the day, only into linux during some part of the day and give you a choice during the rest of the day.
Issue 1: The OSes themselves are on the local machines, but definition of "part of the day" should be centrally administered
Issue 2: People can bring in their laptop's and plug in to the network. But a malicious user should not be able to defeat this network administered definition of "part of day".
Why Grub? Why complicate the simple task of loading an OS with a fucking shell language? LILO is simple and just works. I've hosed systems trying to get Grub to work, never with LILO.
The fact that you don't need to remember to re-install your boot loader every time you change the slightest thing is a major bonus though.
It's not that hard to remember. And if you forget, it's trivial to fix. Switching to Grub for that incredibly tiny minor microscopic inconvenience is just curing the disease by killing the patient.
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