If you need a really light way of loading, just copy the kernel onto a floppy and there you go. Hardly can be lighter.
Have a look at the kernel sources.
Why is a boot loader *not* suitable for a first project:
- you have to have good understanding of the BIOS and underlying hardware - you have to understand the booting conventions - the boot loader is 16 bit code, not an easy piece under Linux - you may need to switch back and forth between 16 and 32 bit modes - it's bloody difficult to debug when something goes awry
Please tell again how you could make LILO lighter and keep the necessary functionality.
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw when "Tauno Voipio" <tauno.voi...@iki.fi.SPAMBAIT_REMOVE.invalid> would write:
> Please tell again how you could make LILO lighter and keep the necessary > functionality.
Furthermore, what people are _actually_ looking for are HEAVIER WEIGHT alternatives to LILO. Distributions are, increasingly, booting using GRUB, which has a whole lot of additional functionality. -- let name="aa454" and tld="freenet.carleton.ca" in String.concat "@" [name;tld];; http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/languages.html Rules of the Evil Overlord #11. "I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
> Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw when "Tauno Voipio" <tauno.voi...@iki.fi.SPAMBAIT_REMOVE.invalid> would write: > > Please tell again how you could make LILO lighter and keep the necessary > > functionality.
> Furthermore, what people are _actually_ looking for are HEAVIER WEIGHT > alternatives to LILO. Distributions are, increasingly, booting using > GRUB, which has a whole lot of additional functionality.
At first I was skeptical about that, but after using it for some time, I must say, I like it. The fact that it doesn't break if you forget to run /sbin/lilo and that it allows you to specify a lot more different options at boot time without having to have them in the configuration file is really nice.
I think part of grub itself is still loaded using a list of sectors, which then have to be rebuild when you update grub. But I don't think I ever did that except when installing a new version of the distribution.
-- Kasper Dupont -- der bruger for meget tid paa usenet. For sending spam use mailto:aaa...@daimi.au.dk /* Would you like fries with that? */
> If you need a really light way of loading, just copy the kernel onto a > floppy and there you go. Hardly can be lighter.
Deprecated and removed from 2.6. Suggested alternative for a lightweight boot loader for floppies is SYSLINUX. Works with FAT12 formatted floppies and nothing else. It has a lot more features than the kernel builtin, but still very lightweight compared to LILO. I think SYSLINUX is and always was (at least for the last four years when I have been using it) the best bootloader for floppies.
-- Kasper Dupont -- der bruger for meget tid paa usenet. For sending spam use mailto:aaa...@daimi.au.dk /* Would you like fries with that? */
> > If you need a really light way of loading, just copy the kernel onto a > > floppy and there you go. Hardly can be lighter.
> Deprecated and removed from 2.6. Suggested alternative for > a lightweight boot loader for floppies is SYSLINUX. Works > with FAT12 formatted floppies and nothing else. It has a > lot more features than the kernel builtin, but still > very lightweight compared to LILO. I think SYSLINUX is and > always was (at least for the last four years when I have > been using it) the best bootloader for floppies.
---------
Thanks for the update - I'm still staying with 2.4 till 2.6 can be trusted and it does not break all the drivers I have.
In article <bqleu3$24did...@ID-125932.news.uni-berlin.de>, Christopher
Browne wrote: > Furthermore, what people are _actually_ looking for are HEAVIER WEIGHT > alternatives to LILO. Distributions are, increasingly, booting using > GRUB, which has a whole lot of additional functionality.
Where GRUB really shines, though, is when used independently of a distribution. I've made a bootable CD with GRUB and the ext2 intermediate stage. Whatever boot loaded a given distribution uses, if I screw it up, I can boot from my GRUB CD, find the kernel, and load it.
The only glitch I run into with this is that it sometimes takes a few guesses to figure out what root= should be for the kernel. It might be nice if the kernel were changed so that when it panics because it cannot mount root, it dumps it's notion of the partition table just before the panic. (Yes, I realize it prints that out when it it finds the drives, but that often scrolls by fast and is long gone by the time the "can't mount root" panic. Printing it again right there would give you a chance to see it, which would greatly help in getting the right root= on the next try).
-- Evidence Eliminator is worthless. See evidence-eliminator-sucks.com --Tim Smith
> (Yes, I realize it prints that out when it it finds the drives, but that > often scrolls by fast and is long gone by the time the "can't mount root" > panic. Printing it again right there would give you a chance to see it, > which would greatly help in getting the right root= on the next try).
Did you ever try Shift+PageUp?
-- Kasper Dupont -- der bruger for meget tid paa usenet. For sending spam use mailto:aaa...@daimi.au.dk /* Would you like fries with that? */
Kasper Dupont <kasp...@daimi.au.dk> writes: >> (Yes, I realize it prints that out when it it finds the drives, but that >> often scrolls by fast and is long gone by the time the "can't mount root" >> panic. Printing it again right there would give you a chance to see it, >> which would greatly help in getting the right root= on the next try).
> >> (Yes, I realize it prints that out when it it finds the drives, but that > >> often scrolls by fast and is long gone by the time the "can't mount root" > >> panic. Printing it again right there would give you a chance to see it, > >> which would greatly help in getting the right root= on the next try).
> > Did you ever try Shift+PageUp?
> That doesn't work when the kernel has panicked.
Sometimes it does. I'm not sure exactly when it works and when it doesn't work.
-- Kasper Dupont -- der bruger for meget tid paa usenet. For sending spam use mailto:aaa...@daimi.au.dk /* Would you like fries with that? */
> > >> (Yes, I realize it prints that out when it it finds the drives, but that > > >> often scrolls by fast and is long gone by the time the "can't mount root" > > >> panic. Printing it again right there would give you a chance to see it, > > >> which would greatly help in getting the right root= on the next try).
> > > Did you ever try Shift+PageUp?
> > That doesn't work when the kernel has panicked.
> Sometimes it does. I'm not sure exactly when it works > and when it doesn't work.
It seems to be that if the keyboard lights are flashing it fails, at least with the 2.4 kernels I've been using.
Jerry Peters <je...@example.invalid> writes: >> > >> (Yes, I realize it prints that out when it it finds the >> > >> drives, but that often scrolls by fast and is long gone by the >> > >> time the "can't mount root" panic. Printing it again right >> > >> there would give you a chance to see it, which would greatly >> > >> help in getting the right root= on the next try).
>> > > Did you ever try Shift+PageUp?
>> > That doesn't work when the kernel has panicked.
>> Sometimes it does. I'm not sure exactly when it works >> and when it doesn't work.
> It seems to be that if the keyboard lights are flashing it fails, at > least with the 2.4 kernels I've been using.
Scrolling fails if there's something interesting just off-screen.
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