[Grml] Boot loaders

[Michael Whapples]

Thanks for the info, very useful. I will look into grub2, although grub 
legacy probably will solve most of my problems with lilo.

Michael Whapples
On -10/01/37 20:59, Michael Schierl wrote:
> Jason White wrote:
>
>    
>>> 1. Am I right about grub being able to accept commands at the boot
>>> screen allowing booting of anything (even if it isn't in the menu list)?
>>>        
>> yes. Also, grub doesn't need to overwrite the boot sector whenever you upgrade
>> a kernel; all it needs to do is change a configuration file to refer to the
>> new kernel image and init-rd image.
>>      
> Grub also allows editing the configured commands and supports tab
> completion of filenames, so that you don't have to type the whole
> command line. Although I doubt this can be done when you cannot see the
> text and the cursor on the screen. If you press 'c' from the menu you
> can just enter your own (new) commands. Enter "boot" when you have
> finished and the commands will be executed.
>
> Note that Grub (like LILO) can only boot from drives accessible by your
> BIOS as disk drives; if you load it from a fixed drive it will neither
> be able to load a kernel from a CD or an USB drive, nor will it boot
> from CD or USB directly. Booting from floppy (or a second internal disk)
> works, though.
>
>    
>> 2. Is it possible to get the grub boot screen to beep like the lilo one
>> as described in the accessibility information on the GRML wiki?
>>      
> In Grub legacy you can embed a Ctrl+G character into one of the menu
> titles, which are shown at bootup automatically (if you put it before
> the 50th or so character; long titles are truncated in the menu display).
>
> In Grub2 there is a "play" command in the configfile which claims to be
> able to play beep sequences (of different length and pitch) defined in a
> file on the PC speaker. I never tried that though, and I could not find
> any documentation about the file format.
>
>    
>>> 3. Have you got any extra reasons you would suggest changing to grub
>>> from lilo or is there a different boot manager you would suggest?
>>>        
>> I would suggest going straight to Grub 2 and skipping grub-legacy if you can.
>> Debian Sid has already moved to Grub 2, Ubuntu are heading in that direction
>> and I expect other distributions to follow. Grub 1 hasn't been maintained for
>> years, but only recently has Grub 2 matured to the point of being widely
>> usable.
>>      
> The main difference is that Grub1 is "rock stable" by now, and Grub2
> sometimes has its glitches. But maybe the glitches are all worked out by
> now, I last looked at Grub2 1.96 which was release in February 2008.
>
>
>
> Hope this helps,
>
>
>
> Michael
>
>