How can I chain boot GRUB (Fedora) from LILO (Slackware)?

DaneM · 07-05-2005, 01:59 AM

Hello.

I just recently installed Fedora Core 4 on /dev/hdc1. My pre-existing Slackware 10.1 installation is on /dev/hda1. What I want to do is keep LILO and use it to boot GRUB, and from there Fedora Core. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

--Dane

vharishankar · 07-05-2005, 02:04 AM

You cannot install both on the MBR. If you install GRUB, then it must be in its own /boot partition.

But it's not really necessary. You can boot all OSes with a single boot loader.

Check the LILO manual for help on how to add more boot items.

Chain booting is a really unnecessary process, unless you need it for some special reason.

DaneM · 07-05-2005, 02:19 AM

Thanks for your reply!

I've tried setting LILO up to boot directly to the Fedora kernel, but since the fedora kernel is on a different partition, it tells me this when I try to write to the MBR (# lilo).

</home/dane/tmp/lzo-2.01>
[root@Orchestrator lzo-2.01]# lilo
Added Linux-2.4.29
Added Linux2.6.11.8 *
Fatal: open /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4: No such file or directory

How can I make it look for the kernel path on hdc instead of hda?

Here is my Fedora section of lilo.conf:

Code:

image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4
root = /dev/hdc1
label = Fedora
read-only

--Dane

__J · 07-05-2005, 12:54 PM

why not use grub to boot both? you can get a slack package of grub from the /extra directory, and it comes with a tool called grubconfig to easily set up your bootable partitions and write the bootloader.

DaneM · 07-05-2005, 04:54 PM

Thanks for the tip, J.

I installed grub and now it's working fine.

I would still like to know how to do this with a stock install of lilo, though.

--Dane

ferrix · 07-05-2005, 09:29 PM

I had a setup like this on one of my computers at one time. From memory, it was perfectly simple - just make sure Grub was installed in a root partition and not in MBR, since you want lilo to be there. Then in lilo.conf, use the same chainload command you'd use to double boot Windows... Googling for 'lilo chainload' will give you plenty of examples. I don't recall having to do anything special beyond that.

DaneM · 07-06-2005, 04:25 AM

I'll keep that in mind next time I run into the problem (or when/if I get tired of GRUB). Thanks a bunch; you all are great!

--Dane