[NTLUG:Discuss] multiple distros on one system

[Lance Simmons]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 02:05:59PM -0600, Bug Hunter wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Lance Simmons wrote:
> 
> > So far as I know, LILO has no commandline.
> 
> Well, LILO does have a command line.  It isn't pretty, but you can
> indeed change almost everything:
> 
> LILO: linux root=/dev/hda1 rw VARIABLE_VALUE_TO_BE_PASSED=3
> 
> and so forth.  There is no help within LILO, generally, but it is also
> fairly powerful.

Sorry for the ambiguity in my comment. What I meant to draw attention to
was this: In GRUB, there are several commands you can issue from the
commandline, observe the results, and then return back the commandline.
For example, you can cat configuration files and read them, 

	grub> cat /etc/fstab

and then make your next move on the basis of what you see. The advantage
of this is obvious: With GRUB on a floppy, you can fairly easily boot
most any machine that can be booted.

As I understand LILO, you only ever get to issue one command, and that
command must be one that is already in your lilo.conf file.  As you
correctly point out, you can modify that command by passing values to
it. Once you've issued it, you don't return to the commandline: either
your machine boots, or LILO freezes.

Understanding filesystems strikes me as a significant desideratum in a
bootloader. GRUB has it and LILO doesn't.

-- 
  .~.
  /v\   Lance Simmons
 // \\  lance at lsimmons.net
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