lilo vs grub

[Samuel Flory]

Mark Mielke wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 10:54:42PM -0400, Jim Cornette wrote:
> 
>>I think that LILO and GRUB should both be included in the distribution. 
>>An important utility like a boot loader should have a backup version. I 
>>needed lilo to restore my ability to boot when I changed drives on the 
>>primary master.
>>Grub failed on an intermediate stage and I would have not been able to 
>>boot my system successfully without having lilo.
> 
> 
> Why didn't you have a backup grub partition? You didn't need lilo to boot.
> You happened to have lilo. Note the difference. Also, grub can be put
> stand-alone on a floppy that allows you to re-install grub without booting
> the system up. Lilo gives you nothing of this.
> 
> 
>>If it is a better choice for the eyes free mode for users. It makes even 
>>more sense to start including it again.
> 
> 
> Why is it a better choice? Why does it make even more sense to start
> including again?

   Because lilo works on some configs that grub does not work on.  I 
have  at least 2 systems that will not boot with grub.  I've encountered 
instances with friends where grub-install to reinstall grub on to the mbr.

> 
> I find lilo to be dangerous - if you don't run lilo after moving the kernel
> image, or installation a new kernel image, you are dead. Grub gives you
> several different options to work from.
>

   Actually your system will boot just fine if the filesystem hasn't 
reclaimed the space used by the file;-)  Person I like the fact that I 
have to run lilo.  It's a great sanity check.  With grub you really 
can't be sure your system will be able to reboot.


> I see no reason why lilo should continue to be developed, or why it should
> be re-included into fedora or redhat.
> 
> If you have a problem with how it works 'eyes free', your efforts would be
> better spent making suggestions to the grub developers, or even better,
> providing source code patches for them to work from.
> 
> Cheers,
> mark
> 


-- 
Once you have their hardware. Never give it back.
(The First Rule of Hardware Acquisition)
Sam Flory  <sflory at rackable.com>