If I make 2.6.20.4 as the default kernel it's possibly for kernel panic and 'cause i'm on a remote server I can't do anything if server got down ! so I prefered to use "lilo -R 2.6.20.4" to run new kernel only after reboot and if it didn't work properly lilo load the previous kernel !

really i got confused, 'cause i don't know what i'm exactly through, just I should guess what's going on the server !

Can we see the contents of "lilo.conf"? Like I said, I know nothing about lilo, but from the man page it looks like you could run "lilo -R prompt timeout=5" to let you select which kernel to boot.

here's :

prompt
timeout=10
default=2.6.9-42.0.10.E
boot=/dev/sda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
linear

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20.4
label=2.6.20.4
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.20.4.img
read-only
root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-42.0.10.ELsmp
label=2.6.9-42.0.10.E
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.9-42.0.10.ELsmp.img
read-only
root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

It isn't so much different of grub ! they are nearly same formed

I said to set panic_timeout in kernel/panic.c before compiling the kernel ! not in lilo.conf

So, you do have a 10 second prompt. Does it not allow you to boot from the 2.6.20 kernel?

I have a 10 second prompt in lilo.conf and 5 second panic timeout in panic.c !

I exactly don't know why the kernel loading keeps failing ! It seems like there's a problem with compiling and it causes kernel panic, so lilo makes the default kernel ( 2.6.9 ) running !

What is the panic message? You really need to try to give us more information than "it doesn't work".

as i said before i'm working on a remote server, it's a dediacted one and I've just got a remote access via SSH, no physical access and noway for monitoring !

so I can't see what's going wrong on loading !

any replies?

You have no way to monitor it, and neither do we. It's really hard to help you in that situation.

yea, it's a dedicated Server and the only access i have it's via SSH. and the kernel keeps failing. idk what to do.