LILO
stands for Linux Loader. The contents of the /etc/lilo.conf
file (in RedHat Linux 6) decide what LILO does during booting.
This article explains one possible setup on your machine, where
you could have Linux and Windows 95 together on one computer.
The important lines in the lilo.conf file are the location of
your Windows and Linux partitions. If you know the partitions
on which you have installed the Operating Systems, then configuring
LILO is very simple.
Setup :
The
setup of my system can be best explained with the table below
|
Linux
device
|
Size
|
Type |
Description |
|
/dev/hda1
|
2
GB
|
Win
95 Fat32 |
C:\
in Windows (Within Primary Partition) |
|
/dev/hda3
|
1
GB
|
Linux
Native |
Consists
of / and /boot (Within Primary Partition) |
|
/dev/hda4
|
60MB
|
Linux
Swap |
(Within
Primary Partition) |
|
/dev/hda5
|
3GB
|
Win
95 Fat32 |
D:\
in Windows
Logical 1st partition (Within Extended Partition) |
|
/dev/hda6
|
2GB
|
Linux
Native |
Consists
of /usr
Logical 2nd partition (Within Extended Partition) |
Currently
when my system boots. The Lilo prompt stays for 5 seconds. On
pressing <Tab> I get 2 options named linux & win.
If I don't type anything for 5 seconds, then by default
(as set in lilo.conf) Windows 95 starts booting.
Procedure
:
Edit
the /etc/lilo.conf file (using any text editor) as shown
below. This is the current configuration on my system. Yours
may be different. Make the requisite changes to boot the partition
where your Windows installation exists.
|
boot
= /dev/hda
timeout
= 50
prompt
default
= win
vga = normal
read-only
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.12-20
label
= linux
initrd = /boot/initrd-2.2.12-20.img
root = /dev/hda3
other = /dev/hda1
label = win
|
Most of the lines are self descriptive. The lines we are concerned
with is default=win and the last 2 lines which describe
on which partition Windows is installed. 'win' is a name
that I have given to my Windows OS. You can give any name but
see to it that both the lines (default= and label= ) share the
same name. This name would appear when you press the <Tab>
key at the LILO prompt.
Note
: LILO can also be configured to boot directly into a particular
OS without prompting the user. If the user has pressed <Shift>
while LILO is displayed on the screen, then only will it prompt
the user for a choice. This procedure shall be explained in
some other article
