Switching from Grub to LILO on a Dual-Boot System - How?

I'm copying a bit of text from a post about my experiences with my new Clevo m570u from this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=97380

So right now I have XP installed on the primary partition, Ubuntu 6.10 installed on the second, and a 3rd swap partition. Since installing Ubuntu, I have gone back and used the XP fixmbr command to restore the Windows loader to being in control so that I at least have one fully functional OS. Before doing this, I did try adding the "acpi=off" command in the Grub boot string for Ubuntu, and while that did indeed allow me to access the DVD drive, it also caused me to lose network connectivity and perhaps other things. (I'm not exactly sure what all is affected by that.)

So, I'm left thinking that my best option is to install LILO and let that either be primary boot manager or put it just on the linux partition and use the XP one as the primary. (I am going to install Vista on here, which of course will overwrite the MBR yet again, so that latter might be the best option.)

So the questions I have are as follows:

1. How do I switch from Grub to LILO (what is the entire proper procedure for that)
2. How would I install LILO on the linux partition instead of the MBR?
3. What is the line that I add to Boot.ini in XP to properly reference the linux partition if I get it set up that way?

I'm really hoping somebody here has some pointers for this, since I actually haven't gotten any responses on the ubuntu forums yet. Here's hoping that my fellow notebook users are able to help me.

 

You can't use the XP bootloader to load Linux, period. If you want to install lilo from Ubuntu, why not just apt-get install lilo from ubuntu, and set it up that way?

 

OK, that first part is good to know; I can cross that off the list.

So then my question is, is it really as simple as just getting and installing the package for LILO? Do I have to uninstall Grub? Will installing the package automatically install LILO on the mbr? Are there options that I have to set?

Thanks for the help!

 

Sure you can. Or at least, you can use ntldr as your primary boot loader, and just chain-load Grub or Lilo.

I've run with that setup for ages. (I like the simple look of XP's bootloader)
Bootpart is a handy program that helps you configure XP's bootloader
Only tricky part is to keep Grub out of your MBR.

 

Ah, ok.

I think I'd like that set up (again, mainly 'cuz Vista will overwrite MBR again when it gets installed).

OK, so BootPart will make it easy to add the linux partition to the Windows loader, so then all I need to know is how to install LILO on just the linux partition. After I get the package, I assume I need to edit lilo.conf, right? That's what will tell it where to install itself?

 

Oh, so upon more reading, apparently BootPart doesn't support NTFS partitions, which is what my primary (Windows) one is. Am I understanding that correctly?

Ah well, back to LILO handling everything.

 

If Ubuntu is similar to Debian, there will be the lilo package and then a lilo-doc package, which contains extra documentation on lilo.

If you still have access to your Ubuntu installation, you could note down the information in /boot/grub/menu.lst. Although the menu.lst and /etc/lilo.conf files are in a different format, it would be useful to have the details of any kernel parameters and the initrd.

The high-level of what you need to do.

1) Get the lilo package
2) Edit the /etc/lilo.conf
3) run the 'lilo' command as root (or 'sudo lilo' because you're using Ubuntu) this actually installs the boot loader using the information in /etc/lilo.conf.

Warning: Each time you change the kernel (e.g. upgrade a kernel package or (re)compile your own kernel), you'll have to remember check (and possibily edit) lilo.conf, and then run the 'lilo' command. If you don't you'll end not being able to boot your linux system.

With Debian, it is possible to change a configuration file (I forget which one) to make sure that 'lilo' is run automatically after installing or upgrading a kernel package. I don't know if this was carried across to Ubuntu?

 

OK, so I think I got everything working now using LILO. Both Ubuntu and Windows boot, and I seem to have access to my CD/DVD drive.

I'm actually a little surprised, given that I created my own lilo.conf from scratch. I kinda figured I'd forget something or otherwise end up hosing it. Yay for something working for once.

I did use the menu.lst file as reference, so that certainly helped.

Now if I can only figure out why Beryl isn't working for me, I'll be golden.

Thank you all!

 

Another option for multiboots is the bootloader Gag. It is really simple to set up.

 

It may be a nice OS selector, but it will not load linux, and therefore although it maybe easier to setup, the user will then still have to figure out how to configure and install either lilo or grub.