More Lilo
Finally got around to setting up lilo properly today. Here's my lilo.conf:
Key things to note:
install=text - I hate the crappy ascii menu.
delay=0 - boot straight away, no waiting.
password="" - when you run lilo it asks for the password to use and stores it somewhere safe, not in lilo.conf.
restricted/mandatory - you need the password to boot from floppy or CD, or to pass options to the kernel (you also need to put scroll lock on otherwise you won't get the chance as delay=0).
unsafe - you need this to get the floppy bit to work. It tells it not to check what's in the drive when you run lilo (although I think putting a bootable disk in would work too)
And finally:
other = /boot/cdboot.b
This is a little hack I found here to allow me to boot from CD "through lilo". It's explained better on that page, but I'll give it a go in case that site goes down or something.
Basically, lilo can't boot up a CD (or it can, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work). Instead, it tells the BIOS that it failed to boot from the hard drive, so the BIOS then passes control to whatever is next on your boot order, which conveniently is the CD drive.
cdboot.b is the program which tells the BIOS that the hard drive failed. It consists of 512 bytes and goes: CD 18 00 00 00 ... 00 00 55 AA. So that's CD, then 18, then 508 lots of 00, then 55, then AA.
boot = /dev/hda
install=text
vga = 773
delay=0
password=""
default=Linux
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
reset
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda1
label = Linux
read-only
restricted
other = /dev/fd0
label = Floppy
mandatory
unsafe
other = /boot/cdboot.b
label = CD
mandatory
Key things to note:
install=text - I hate the crappy ascii menu.
delay=0 - boot straight away, no waiting.
password="" - when you run lilo it asks for the password to use and stores it somewhere safe, not in lilo.conf.
restricted/mandatory - you need the password to boot from floppy or CD, or to pass options to the kernel (you also need to put scroll lock on otherwise you won't get the chance as delay=0).
unsafe - you need this to get the floppy bit to work. It tells it not to check what's in the drive when you run lilo (although I think putting a bootable disk in would work too)
And finally:
other = /boot/cdboot.b
This is a little hack I found here to allow me to boot from CD "through lilo". It's explained better on that page, but I'll give it a go in case that site goes down or something.
Basically, lilo can't boot up a CD (or it can, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work). Instead, it tells the BIOS that it failed to boot from the hard drive, so the BIOS then passes control to whatever is next on your boot order, which conveniently is the CD drive.
cdboot.b is the program which tells the BIOS that the hard drive failed. It consists of 512 bytes and goes: CD 18 00 00 00 ... 00 00 55 AA. So that's CD, then 18, then 508 lots of 00, then 55, then AA.
posted by shfbbm at 5:47 PM
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