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Home > Archive > Red Hat Installation > February 2004 > Grub or Lilo?
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In installing RH9, is there any preference to using Grub or Lilo? If so,
reasons?
Thanks.
Ed
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| Robert M. Riches Jr. 2004-02-21, 4:33 pm |
| In article < Xns9496D1A419DF7SpectrumhogStarbandn@148
.78.248.75>, Ed G wrote:
>
> In installing RH9, is there any preference to using Grub or Lilo? If so,
> reasons?
Red Hat's preference is evident in the default selection:
Grub.
The one significant difference of which I'm aware is you can
change the grub.conf file (with a text editor, for example)
and just changing the file takes effect immediately. With
Lilo, you have to update the master boot record or boot
sector (I'm a little unclear on that, being as I have always
used Grub) to make a change to the configuration file take
effect. For me, that is an advantage for Grub.
Good luck.
Robert Riches
spamtrap42@verizon.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)
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| Les Mikesell 2004-02-22, 6:34 am |
| "Robert M. Riches Jr." <spamtrap42@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:slrnc3gh9m.pp0.rob@one.localnet...
> The one significant difference of which I'm aware is you can
> change the grub.conf file (with a text editor, for example)
> and just changing the file takes effect immediately. With
> Lilo, you have to update the master boot record or boot
> sector (I'm a little unclear on that, being as I have always
> used Grub) to make a change to the configuration file take
> effect. For me, that is an advantage for Grub.
Yes, with lilo you must run /sbin/lilo after a change to lilo.conf.
However, this will generally catch any errors in your changes,
where with grub you don't find out you made a mistake until
the machine fails to boot. Also, since grub uses distinctly
non-linux device names it is a lot easier to get it wrong.
----
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@comcast.net
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> Yes, with lilo you must run /sbin/lilo after a change to lilo.conf.
> However, this will generally catch any errors in your changes,
> where with grub you don't find out you made a mistake until
> the machine fails to boot. Also, since grub uses distinctly
> non-linux device names it is a lot easier to get it wrong.
>
Thanks to both of you. I guess, since I'm a newbie to Linux, I'd
better stick with Lilo.
Ed
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| Robert M. Riches Jr. 2004-02-23, 4:35 am |
| In article <4k7_b.100817$uV3.582975@attbi_s51>, Les Mikesell wrote:
>
> Yes, with lilo you must run /sbin/lilo after a change to lilo.conf.
> However, this will generally catch any errors in your changes,
> where with grub you don't find out you made a mistake until
> the machine fails to boot. Also, since grub uses distinctly
> non-linux device names it is a lot easier to get it wrong.
That sounds like a good point. It causes me to wonder
whether Grub has a utility that will check a config file for
those common errors that can be checked, and if not, why
not.
With a broken grub.conf file, worst case, boot Knoppix or
rescue mode, fix the file, and try again.
Thanks.
Robert Riches
spamtrap42@verizon.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)
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| Jeremy Stanley 2004-02-23, 8:34 am |
| > Yes, with lilo you must run /sbin/lilo after a change to lilo.conf.
> However, this will generally catch any errors in your changes,
> where with grub you don't find out you made a mistake until
> the machine fails to boot.
True. However, GRUB lets you edit the booting commands on the fly, so
it's not as bad as it sounds--you don't need to dig up a recovery CD.
(You just have to remember to fix grub.conf permanently once you boot
successfully...)
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| Les Mikesell 2004-02-23, 1:34 pm |
| "Jeremy Stanley" <stanmuffin@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:27f752b2.0402231312.498c60e3@posting.google.com...
>
> True. However, GRUB lets you edit the booting commands on the fly, so
> it's not as bad as it sounds--you don't need to dig up a recovery CD.
> (You just have to remember to fix grub.conf permanently once you boot
> successfully...)
Yes, it is possible to recover by hand and I've actually done that but for
me it took a lot longer to figure out the obscure grub syntax than to
find an install CD and boot it in rescue mode. On the other hand I
have not had much trouble letting yum upgrade kernels and fix everything
up automatically so it is pretty rare to have to deal with grub manually.
---
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@comcast.net
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| Don Campbell 2004-02-27, 1:34 am |
| Ed G wrote:
> In installing RH9, is there any preference to using Grub or Lilo? If so,
> reasons?
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Ed
I had a Grub install fail and then I found it impossible to rescue
the install. That was in olden times, but in the process of looking
into the documentation I found that the Grub
documents were miserable to decipher and the fact that Grub chooses
to use a totally different nomenclature is completely confusing.
Grub's main advantage is security of the local machine. A local
user isn't going to get past the Grub password lightly whereas
getting past lilo is a cinch. If your local machine is in a public
building like mine once was--where about 100 people had a key to
the locks that included my office--then grub might be useful.
I find myself regularly doing things that need fixing at the boot
level. Lilo is easy to understand and easy to fix from a rescue disk.
For that reason lilo is my boot loader.
Don
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