Boot Manager- Was: Linux not reporting

[Cyber Source]

nice post. What distro are you using?

green_man wrote:

> Cyber Source wrote, On 08/20/04 7:46 PM:
>
>> You can install either. I believe Mandrake installs Lilo by default 
>> and RedHat/Fedora install GRUB by default. GRUB has more flexibility 
>> and options than Lilo, you can do simple things like put spaces in 
>> the names, change without reinstalling, etc. I have come to prefer 
>> GRUB but there are others that gotta have there Lilo (don't want any 
>> flames). Both can be installed to the MBR.
>>
>> green_man wrote:
>>
>>> Cyber Source wrote, On 08/15/04 1:37 PM:
>>>
>>> ... I seem to remember that Lilo has a problem with large memory. 
>>> Try using grub, you can easily switch back if it doesnt do the trick 
>>> for you (although I don't know why you would). ...
>>>
>>> I always thought that the Boot Manager was sort of "integral" to the 
>>> operating system.
>>> How do you change from one to another ?
>>> Is there a HOWTO somewhere for it ?
>>>
>>> What are the advantages of grub over LiLo, or is it more of a 
>>> preference thing like Gnome vs KDE ?
>>
>>
>
> A quick search found these advantages from many sources -
>
> [quotes]
> The problem with Microsoft operating system is that they all want to 
> boot from the primary partition. This is where GRUB comes in. It can 
> hide primary partitions. You can use up to 3 partitions to install 
> Microsoft operating systems. GRUB will hide the other 2 partitions so 
> that the operating systems will not see it. This means you will need 
> another partition to share data between DOS, Win9x and Windows 2000. 
> The 4th partition is used for the extended partition.
>
> This is where GNU GRUB, the GRand Unified Bootloader comes in. It 
> differs from bootloaders such as LILO in that it can lie to Windows 
> and make Windows believe that it's installed on the first partition 
> even if it's not. So you can keep your current Linux system where it 
> is and install Windows on the side.
>
> I also wanted a menu system and GRUB provides a nice one.
>
> Another nice feature of GRUB is that it supports reiserfs so I don't 
> need to keep my /boot file in a separate ext2 partition.
>
> GRUB's configuration file is read from the disk every time the system 
> boots, preventing you from having to write over the MBR every time you 
> change the boot options.
>
> Most boot loaders are not sophisticated enough to read configuration 
> files and use them to set up boot options. For example, to change a 
> LILO boot configuration, such as changing the default operating system 
> to boot, you must change a LILO configuration file and run a command 
> that overwrites the system's MBR with the new configuration data. This 
> is more risky than GRUB's method, because a misconfigured MBR would 
> leave you with an unbootable system. With GRUB, if you misconfigure 
> the configuration file and reboot, it will simply drop you to a 
> command line and allow you to manually type commands that will launch 
> the operating system. The MBR is not touched except to update the 
> Stage 1, Stage 2, or menu configuration file locations, and this is 
> rarely necessary.
>
> When changes are made to the GRUB configuration file, it is not 
> necessary to restart GRUB. Any changes made are automatically 
> detected. If you do restart GRUB, you will be dropped to the command 
> line GRUB shell.
> [end quotes]
>
> It sounds like a winner to me !!
> What is the current version, and what else will it need so I don't 
> wind up in rpm hell ?
>