I am wondering if there is way to install the GRUB boot loader on KnoppMyth 5F1 without causing major problems? And hopefully avoid Lilo all together?

I have had my KnoppMyth report L 99 99 99 ... quite a bit recently after several unplanned power outages and I am getting really tired of reinstalling the entire system over and over again.

I was thinking that perhaps GRUB would solve the whole LILO failing problems as it is a considerably more robust boot loader than LILO. But installing Grub over any of my installations has caused considerable boot errors.

Speaking of which, I am curious to know why KnoppMyth has not switched to GRUB over Lilo? Is there a specific reason I am not aware of?

Language please. Cecil has requested that we keep it below a PG rating.

As for power outage problems, I strongly recommend a UPS. Not only will it avoid problems like this but it will help protect your system from all manner of dips, sags, spikes, surges, strikes, ...

Fianlly, in many cases Cecil uses the smallest simplest utility available to keep the footprint of a KnoppMyth install small and the things newbies have to deal with simple. This means fluxbox rather than KDE, Gnome or even Fvwm, lilo rather than grub, ... Partisans for other solutions are always convinced of the overwhelming superiority of their favorite utilities, but like a mother cuckoo, seldom seem interested in doing the work involved in making and supporting the change.

Check, I edited the original post.



You have a point there.



I understand that, and for the most part I agree. Though I think Fluxbox is an odd animal, when it comes to simplicity and complexity (for in some ways I think it has both when you start configuring it). Not that I am complaining, I like Fluxbox.



...

Yes there is a reason that LILO was chosen over GRUB. Grub uses a _different_ disk naming convention than Linux. Its bad enough for a newbie to possibly learn the Linux convention without having to also learn a different one just for the boot loader. Personally, I use Linux _only_ here. I see absolutely _NO_ reason a user of Linux should have to learn a different naming convention "just for the boot loader".

What he said...

This thread is old, but I have some more to add.

I don't know if any one is interested, but I figured out how to use GRUB over LILO on my KnoppMyth machine. If anyone cares I could write up a tutorial for it.



I also only use Linux on my computers as well.

Well, in respectful rebuttal, I don't agree with your arguments about the names of LILO vs GRUB. I am not a newbie, but the name of a new program alone is seldom confusing to me.

Again, speaking respectfully here, this thread is not here to necessarily convince you to switch to GRUB, but because I like KnoppMyth, I feel compelled to argue for it to be considered.

Here are my reasons:

1) I have had LILO become corrupt occasionally because of power losses (very frequent in my area) but I have never had GRUB become corrupt because of random power loss. This stability alone is enough for me to always convert from LILO to GRUB.

2) GRUB is the (new) current standard from GNU, and is becoming more standard on more Linux distributions. Speaking from a newbie of todays world, using LILO may now appear abnormal since GRUB has become as common as it is.

3) I do not know how easily LILO+GRUB mix on the same system, but my own experience is that they don't mix well. As GRUB continues to become more common, the fact that KnoppMyth continues to use LILO could eventually lead to compatibility issues.

I would like to add a fourth point, but I do not have a lot of experience personally, so I could be wrong. Installing a new kernel in a system with GRUB using the Debian apt systems is pretty much automatic, but my experience with LILO is that it requires more user work.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

You seem to have mis-understood. I was not pointing out that the program names were different, but that the naming of the disk drives was different. Linux uses /dev/hda1 as the name of the first partition on the IDE-master, Lilo can use this naming scheme, but Grub uses something like hd(0,0). Linux uses /dev/sdb2 for the name of the second scsi disk' second partition. What does Grub use?

Should a newbie be required to understand this to work with booting?

Something I noticed last month when I set up ubuntu for my son:

Grub (and fstab) can use UUIDs. This means that the system will boot, even if the drives are re-cabled. This might come in handy for a mythbox where one of the most common upgrades is a new HD.

I discovered this when I was trying to discover what the 5 (!) IDE plugs were on the ancient MB using trial and error. To my surprise, the system came up normally after shuffling the drives.

I agree that complicated drive identifiers in the boot loader (and fstab) have a big downside. I'm not sure how this balances cable-independent booting. I would be willing to look into the ubuntu's drive detection scripts if there is interest.

_________________
ASUS AT3N7A-I (Atom 330)
TBS 8922 PCI (DVB-S2)

Thanks, alien, but its a standard with mount. You can use LABEL ot UUID. But thats a level of indirection that makes it even harder for newbies to understand, imho.

Hi,

I use grub as a loader also, IF i set up multi boot. Then if I install ubuntu last, it usually picks up other os's automatically. M$ and/or KM . Being lazy, I like that

Once grub is installed, one can manually upgrade KM and with couple of simple text file edits backup in minutes.

Only trick is to disable the fsck for the KM partitions in the /etc/fstab. ie 0 0

Mike

Just poking around with this LABEL stuff.....

It might be argued that /dev/disk/by-label/KNOPPMYTH would be easier for newbies to understand then /dev/sda1 (or hda1 or....).

I get the feeling a lot of this label support is pretty new and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to jump in right away. It may be worth re-considering again in 6-12 months though...

I agree that UUID is definitely non-intuitive and would do more harm than good to knoppmyth.

_________________
ASUS AT3N7A-I (Atom 330)
TBS 8922 PCI (DVB-S2)

Actually LABEL mounting has been around for many years. By UUID is not quiet as old as by LABEL, however. A few of the "real" distro's have used it, but some have found it to be more of a problem than a solution.