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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.""
so, which dupeloader is the best?
I use CmdrTaco, works best with my old version of the beowulf cluster....
Whoa, tone down the technical mumbo-jumbo a bit, I'm having trouble following. So now what you're saying is that Linux thing is now on computers?
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.
...GRUB is the ultimate choice. It understands multiple OSes (including Windows XP), is very flexible and easy to use and uses a highly ethical license. Oh... and it doesn't require you to reinstall it after you make a change to it's config file like LILO does. No need to read any further. I have spoken.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I was going to post but computer says LIL-
Philip
Signatures are broken
Yeah, you have posted this before!
Yeah, but there is a big:
diff -u post1 post2
--- post1 Tue Jan 3 09:35:05 2006
+++ post2 Tue Jan 3 09:34:20 2006
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
-Francesca
+An
+anonymous
+reader
writes
"What
utility
@@ -125,4 +127,4 @@
more
flexible
boot
-loaders."
+loaders.""
If the authors would have been the same and the second one didn't have an extra '"' at the end of it, it would have been the perfect dupe.
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.
GAG (graphical)
Gujin
Syslinux
Meh.
I keed, I keed!
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
My kitten Luna loads my boots with shredded paper and cat toys every night. She is the best boot loader ever!
WARNING: Smoking this sig may cause lowered IQ, insanity or short term memory loss. It is also really bad for your monit
My biggest problem, and why I stick with LILO as opposed to using GRUB, is because of the current state of the GRUB development. I'm not exactly sure what's going on with the GRUB project, I have seen their website, and read their information, but I don't understand where they are at in their development, especially with GRUB 2. GRUB has been labelled their legacy product, which does mean it has been released, and relatively stable. However, they have completely stopped work on their legacy GRUB product and began working on GRUB 2. GRUB 2 doesn't have a stable release yet (they have builds released via CVS or whatever build versioning system they use). What should we expect from GRUB 2, that GRUB or LILO doesn't offer? I don't like the setup and install process for GRUB, I find it more convoluted than the setup, install, and configuration (lilo.conf) of LILO.
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
Try enable "USB Legacy support" or similiar in BIOS. Has helped me every time.
This article explains how to write your own boot sector. The tutorial includes assembly language code to demonstrate loading and executing a binary image from a FAT filesystem. It's also an interesting read if you want to understand the fundamentals of the X86 boot process.
-Brandon "How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?"
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.
\\'
Did you wave the dead chicken ?
You forgot to wave the dead chicken didn't you ?
Bah, newbie...
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Why isn't the PC bios responsible for loading O/Ses? because the PC bios is a relic, a leftover from the days of 8086. Why aren't bioses 32-bit? why PCs still have to boot in real mode?
Bootloaders are very clever pieces of coding, but their presence makes it difficult for PC bioses to be replaced.
With this approach, there's no need to put drivers needed at boot time in the kernel. (Drivers are user programs under QNX.) The kernel doesn't need to know about disks. If you want a GUI during boot, you can have it. For embedded systems, the entire "OS file system" can be put in ROM, eliminating any need for a disk. For desktop x86 systems, there's a standard bootable "OS file system" which has all the usual disk and display drivers, the bus enumerators and plug-and-play handler, and the rest of the stuff needed to start an x86 PC. But all that startup stuff isn't in the kernel.
This is especially useful when your target is something that doesn't have a keyboard and screen. That's why QNX does this. Doing it this way cleans much startup-only junk out of the kernel.
The Minix 3 people, unfortunately, didn't get this, so their "microkernel" has more stuff in it than it really needs.