LILO
LILO (LInux LOader) is a simple boot loader to load Linux and other operating systems.
Installation
LILO's installation is two-fold. One is the installation of the software itself on the system (but does not activate LILO), the second one is the installation (activation) of the LILO bootloader on the disk's MBR.
USE flags
USE flags for sys-boot/lilo LInux LOader, the original Linux bootloader
device-mapper
|
Enable support for device-mapper from sys-fs/lvm2 |
minimal
|
Do not install the dolilo helper script |
pxeserial
|
Avoid character echo on PXE serial console |
static
|
!!do not set this during bootstrap!! Causes binaries to be statically linked instead of dynamically |
Emerge
The software installation will only deploy the software on the file system, but will not install LILO in the MBR.
root #
emerge --ask sys-boot/lilo
Installing LILO on the MBR
In order to install LILO on the MBR or update LILO, invoke lilo. However, before doing that, the /etc/lilo.conf file must be set up, which is covered in the Configuration section below.
root #
lilo
Configuration
An example lilo.conf file is provided at /etc/lilo.conf.example. To start configuring LILO, copy over the example file.
root #
cp /etc/lilo.conf.example /etc/lilo.conf
Update the /etc/lilo.conf file accordingly.
General configuration
First configure LILO to be deployed on the system. The boot
parameter tells LILO where to install the LILO bootloader in. Usually, this is the block device that represents the first disk (the disk that the system will boot), such as /dev/sda. Be aware that the lilo.conf.example file still uses /dev/hda so make sure that references to /dev/hda are changed to /dev/sda.
boot=/dev/sda
map=/boot/.map
Next, tell LILO what to boot as default (if the user does not select any other option at the boot menu). The name used here is the label
value of the operating system blocks defined later in the file.
default=Gentoo
LILO will show the available options for a short while before continuing to boot the default selected operating system. How long it waits is defined by the timeout
parameter and is measured in tenths of a second (so the value 10 is one second):
timeout=50
Configuring the Gentoo OS block
An example configuration block for Gentoo is shown below. It is given the "Gentoo" label to match the default
parameter declared earlier.
image=/boot/kernel-3.11.2-gentoo
label=Gentoo
read-only
root=/dev/sda4
This will boot the Linux kernel /boot/kernel-3.11.2-gentoo with root file system /dev/sda4.
Adding kernel parameters
To add additional kernel parameters to the OS block, use the append
parameter. For instance, to boot the Linux kernel silently (so it does not show any kernel messages unless critical):
image=/boot/kernel-3.11.2-gentoo
label=Gentoo
read-only
root=/dev/sda4
append="quiet"
systemd users for instance would want to set init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd
so that the systemd init is used:
append="quiet init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd"
As can be seen, additional kernel parameters are just appended to the same append
parameter.
Multiple block definitions
It is a good idea to keep old definitions available in case the new kernel doesn't boot successfully. This is accomplished by creating another block:
image=/boot/kernel-3.9.2-gentoo
root=/dev/sda4
label=OldGentoo
read-only
Usage
Updating LILO in the MBR
As mentioned earlier, lilo has to be executed in order to install LILO in the MBR. This step has to be repeated every time /etc/lilo.conf is modified or when the Linux kernel(s) that the /etc/lilo.conf file points to are updated!
root #
lilo
Running lilo too much doesn't hurt.
Dual boot Gentoo and FreeBSD
To dual boot Gentoo and FreeBSD, edit /etc/lilo.conf as follows:
large-memory
lba32
boot=/dev/sda
install=menu
map=/boot/map
prompt
default=Gentoo
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26
label="Gentoo"
root=/dev/sda1
append=""
read-only
optional
other=/dev/sda3
label="FreeBSD"
Make sure to adapt the example configuration file to match the setup used.
Removal
Unmerge
Be sure there's another bootloader installed and properly configured before uninstalling lilo! Failing to do so will most likely result in the system failing to bootstrap.
Uninstall lilo, simply:
root #
emerge --ask --depclean --verbose sys-boot/lilo
See also
- GRUB — is a multiboot secondary bootloader capable of loading kernels from a variety of filesystems on most system architectures.