Booting with lilo and chainloading

[mepnoob2005]

Has anyone ever chainloaded multiple operating systems with lilo the way you can with grub? I mean added the extra systems later than when PClinuxOS was installed ?
I want to install PClinuxOS but I don't want to wreck my chainloaded systems so they can't boot.

Will PClinuxOS see all of my installed systems using lilo ? If so I may let it do it's thing.
Thanks in advance for any help
;)

[John A]

You can chainload with almost any distro if you just opt-out of installing the bootloader during install time. Once you get to the command prompt (usually from another Linux distro) you can manually install GRUB wherever you like, and set it up to your preferences.

[mepnoob2005]

Thanks for the reply. I can chainload grub. How do I get the installer in PClinuxOS to install it's bootloader to root?
Are you saying that I can use grub to load PClinuxOS ?
jbennet said that if I chose expert mode when installing the PClinuxOS that I will have the option to install the PClinuxOS bootloader to root. That would be perfect. I am ready to try that.
I guess that I was looking for someone who has done such a thing.
PClinuxOS uses lilo from what I have read. I have only installed systems that use lilo a few times. All of the lilo installs were installed as the only system. Not dual or triple boot.
What I am looking for is whether or not I can edit lilo to chainload other operating systems like the way I edit grub to chainload other systems. A stanza like the one below added into grub will boot any system installed on hda6. As long as grub is installed to root on hda6 any linux will boot without any more editing of the main grub.
By the main grub I mean the one that is installed to the Mbr of hda.

title PClinuxOS at hda6
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader +1

With this method I can install another linux system to this partition, install grub to root on this partition, and I don't have to change the grub entry in my main grub/menu.lst. It makes trying out other systems a breeze.

I don't know how to edit lilo.

Would an edit into lilo work the same as the one that I can put into grub ?

Guess I'll have to keep looking. I'll wait for a while then if I don't get any more help then I suppose I can just dive in. Not a big deal to re-install grub with MEPIS if things go sour. Thanks again for your reply. :)

[jbennet]

The links in my post at the bottom of this page should help

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/post329610.html#post329610

[mepnoob2005]

Thanks jbennet. Those links were exactly what I was looking for. Exactly. Both bookmarked of course.I will have no problem editing lilo now that you left me those links. And I did learn something new about editing grub so that it will boot PClinuxOS too. Nice.
Thank you . :)

[jbennet]

theres similar tutorials on pclinuxoses website for remastering etc...

[qasauria]

am so eager to understand this.That some Linux gurus have been installing more than one version of Linux in some parition reserved for linux?is iit possible and how is it done if yes?

i have some 15gb unpartioned space in my hdd and want to try Linux and maybe Ubuntu server Version on the same partition.Can i make it?
assistance valid.

[John A]

Installing multiple Linux distros to the same filesystem would be difficult (extremely difficult), and there's no real need to do such a thing anyway. Just create a separate partition(s) for each Linux distro that you plan to use.

One thing that you will want to do is create an extended partition first. It's a partition that can hold any number of partitions inside of it, so it gets around the 4 partition limit that normally would be true on a PC.

As for chainloading, don't really bother. It's merely a convenience for geeks who are constantly updating/reinstalling distros. Just install GRUB/LILO to the MBR, and then configure it to load up all your distros. Ubuntu does this automatically, so you don't even need to worry about it.

[Sturm]

2>Installing multiple Linux distros to the same filesystem would be difficult (extremely difficult), and there's no real need to do such a thing anyway. Just create a separate partition(s) for each Linux distro that you plan to use.

I dont think it would that hard. just have multiple fake roots and chroot to the right root with a some type of "pre-init" script. (maybe have you could have a universal kernel? Or you could I guess have some type of loader kernel? mm...)

btw, really like your sig joeprogrammer!

[mepnoob2005]

Yes you can install as many operating systems as you have physical space for. Here is a link to a page where a guy installed 145 operating systems on four hard drives and he had four different windows versions too. He shows how to do it. All booting with grub.
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=147959

Question by new user....
" Someone told me that i need to reinstall grub everytime i make any change."

Answered by me...

No. You don't have to keep re-installing grub. The only boot/grub/menu.lst that you ever want to edit is the first one that you installed to the Mbr of hda. All other grubs must get installed to the root partition of the extra linux that you want to install.
You don't ever have to change your chainloading addition to grub if all you are doing is installing another linux to that partition. As long as the linux that you install can install grub to root.
This is my boot/grub/menu.lst . This is from my install of 3.4.3 on hda7. This is only grub that is loaded to the Mbr of hda. All of the rest of the operating systems have grub loaded to each root partition.
My grub menu.lst is huge. My timeout used to be 5 seconds but I need more time than that to decide.

timeout 15
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1

gfxmenu /boot/grub/message

title MEPIS 6.5 Rc1 at hda5
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
chainloader +1

title MEPIS 6.0 at hda2
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

title MEPIS 6.5 beta 7 'extra' at hda9
rootnoverify (hd0,8 [Removed the bracket after 8 as it tried to become a smiley]
chainloader +1

title MEPIS 3.3.1-1 at hda10
rootnoverify (hd0,9)
chainloader +1

title knoppix 5.1.1 at hdb1
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

title debian at hdb3
rootnoverify (hd1,2)
chainloader +1

title MEPIS 6.5 Rc1 at hdb6
rootnoverify (hd1,5)
chainloader +1

title next linux I install at hdb8
rootnoverify (hd1,7)
chainloader +1

title another linux at hdb10
rootnoverify (hd1,9)
chainloader +1

title any linux that can load grub to root at hdb12
rootnoverify (hd1,11)
chainloader +1

title MEPIS at hda7, kernel 2.6.15-1-586tsc
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-1-586tsc root=/dev/hda7 nomce quiet vga=791

title Windows at hda1
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

title MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86.bin

As for having to change the menu.lst, you never have to unless you want to. I can install another version of MEPIS to any one of the chainloaded linux's partitions and as long as I install grub to root when I install the new version I don't have to change my main grub menu.lst.

For example on hdb1 I have knoppix 5.1.1. I have grub installed to root of course. Now if I decided to install sidux to hdb1 as long as I install grub to root on hdb1 then when I reboot I just choose the knoppix grub line and it will boot the sidux install. When I get tired of sidux, in about five minutes, I can install kanotix to that partition, install grub to root , and when I choose the knoppix entry on my grub screen it will boot kanotix. I have been doing it this way and it works every time. You have be sure to ONLY edit the main grub that is installed to the Mbr of hda. All the other grubs get installed to each root partition.

Hard drives hdb10 and 12 don't have anything installed there yet but by putting the addition into the menu.lst I can boot from those partitions as soon as I install to them. Ready to go. I learned about this way from this link. Called 'How to install 145 operating systems to one computer'
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showt...hreadid=147959

Have fun triple-triple booting, as I sure do. http://www.mepislovers.org/forums/images/smilies/happy.gif

[John A]

I dont think it would that hard. just have multiple fake roots and chroot to the right root with a some type of "pre-init" script. (maybe have you could have a universal kernel? Or you could I guess have some type of loader kernel? mm...)

Oh yeah, that's an option, too. I was thinking along the lines of having two root filesystems in the same directory. Chrooting would be a lot easier, but it would still be very difficult for anyone that's not used Linux a lot (as it seems from the poster in question).

I just thought of creating disk images of partitions and saving them to the main one, then mounting them at boot time, although I'm not sure how well that would work (if at all).btw, really like your sig joeprogrammer!
Aw, thanks. I noticed it on another guy's signature when I was researching something for my Linux installation.

[John A]

That some Linux gurus have been installing more than one version of Linux in some parition reserved for linux?is iit possible and how is it done if yes?

i have some 15gb unpartioned space in my hdd and want to try Linux and maybe Ubuntu server Version on the same partition.Can i make it?

Yes you can install as many operating systems as you have physical space for.

Thanks for the post, mepnoob. I don't mean to put you down or anything, but don't you think that you aren't answering the poster's question? The poster wanted to know if it was possible to install several Linux root filesystems to the same partition, and you responded with how to chainload 145 operating systems.

[mepnoob2005]

am so eager to understand this.That some Linux gurus have been installing more than one version of Linux in some parition reserved for linux?is iit possible and how is it done if yes? i have some 15gb unpartioned space in my hdd and want to try Linux and maybe Ubuntu server Version on the same partition.Can i make it? assistance valid.

Actually 15 gig is just barely enough to pull it off. For an install of ubuntu or MEPIS you need a small root partition of about 5 Gb, a linux/swap formatted partition of 512Mb or bigger (I use 1 Gb for swap.) and a home partition of at least 5 gb. That will leave you five gb that you could use for the server. Maybe you could defrag, defrag, defrag and then use an app like gparted to shrink the windows partition to be able to squeeze a bit more room for playing. Another easy idea would be to get another hard drive and use it for linux and testing other operating systems.

I use MEPIS for everything. It is #1 for me.
PCLinuxOS is a strong #2. If there were no MEPIS i would use PCLinuxOS.
For an older computer I say to use antiX.
AntiX is based on the newest MEPIS and will run on 64Mb of ram. Antix uses fluxbox and icewm as windows managers but comes with kde libs so you can install kde stuff.

And joe I think I answered the question just fine. He was curious about booting more than one system after all. My post showed him how. Mepislovers is a great place to learn more about multi-booting.

[Sturm]

>Actually 15 gig is just barely enough to pull it off. For an install of ubuntu or MEPIS you need a small root partition of about 5 Gb, a linux/swap formatted partition of 512Mb or bigger (I use 1 Gb for swap.) and a home partition of at least 5 gb. That will leave you five gb that you could use for the server. Maybe you could defrag, defrag, defrag and then use an app like gparted to shrink the windows partition to be able to squeeze a bit more room for playing. Another easy idea would be to get another hard drive and use it for linux and testing other operating systems.

For a server, the lfs website says its possible to get a lfs system w/ apache under ~5 mb.

On my arch linux system I believe my base install took up around ~400 mb. (swap is for losers ;-p)

For a server I really don't understand why anyone would use ubuntu... (presumably a person who is knowledgeable enough to run a server would be knowledgeable enough to use another distro)

[jbennet]

I use debian, centos and slackware on my servers but I like ubuntu on my desktops. On ubuntu itys just 1 click to get restricted drivers and codecs whereas it can be a pain under vanilla debian.

[Sturm]

>I use debian, centos and slackware on my servers but I like ubuntu on my desktops. On ubuntu itys just 1 click to get restricted drivers and codecs whereas it can be a pain under vanilla debian.

The debian devs strike me as a bunch of moral elitists who are a bit too much like the FSF for me.

[John A]

For a server I really don't understand why anyone would use ubuntu... (presumably a person who is knowledgeable enough to run a server would be knowledgeable enough to use another distro)

I use debian, centos and slackware on my servers but I like ubuntu on my desktops. On ubuntu itys just 1 click to get restricted drivers and codecs whereas it can be a pain under vanilla debian.

Completely agreed. Ubuntu's goal seems to be ease of use, abstraction, etc. Which is the completely wrong approach for a server model. If you can't handle the guts of a server, you shouldn't be attempting to set one up. And for those who can handle the guts of a server, use something more low-level for flexibility and speed.

[jbennet]

Exactly. Thats why I use debian/slack for my servers and restrict ubuntu for the desktop

Ubuntu is a bad choice for the server as its based on debian sid (unstable) and uses emerging technologies which have not been thoroughly proven. I also dont agree with using "sudo" on a server.

Debian on the other hand is very stable and has a long release cycle

The debian / Ubuntu thing is just like with Redhat. Redhat have Fedora for home pcs and RHEL for servers. RHEL has a long lifecycle and is stable whereas Fedora is cutting edge and easy to use.

[John A]

>I also dont agree with using "sudo" on a server.
I've heard a number of arguments between sudo vs. su; I'm curious to hear yours.

[jbennet]

Personally i think that anyone who calls themselves a server admin aught to know how and when to use root access responsibly.