source: BOOK/bootable/x86_64-64/lilo.xml@ aa020293

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<sect1 id="ch-bootable-lilo">
  <?dbhtml filename="lilo.html"?>

  <title>Making the CLFS System Bootable</title>

  <indexterm zone="ch-bootable-lilo">
    <primary sortas="a-Lilo">Lilo</primary>
    <secondary>configuring</secondary>
  </indexterm>

    <para os="a">Your shiny new CLFS system is almost complete. One of the
    last things to do is to ensure that the system can be properly booted. The
    instructions below apply only to computers using Lilo, which in the
    context of this book means x86_64 Pure64 systems. Information on
    <quote>boot loading</quote> for other architectures should be available in
    the usual resource-specific locations for those architectures.</para>

  <xi:include xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2003/XInclude"
  href="../x86/grub.xml"
  xpointer="xpointer(//*[@os='b'])"/>

    <para os="c">If you have multiple systems on your machine using a different
    bootloader such as GRUB, you may prefer to use that instead - consult the
    appropriate documentation. The rest of this section assumes you are going
    to use Lilo.</para> 

    <para os="d">Earlier, we compiled and installed the Lilo boot loader
    software in preparation for this step. The procedure involves writing a
    boot image to a specific location on the hard drive. We highly recommend
    using <command>mkrescue</command> to create a Lilo boot CD (using e.g.
    <command>dvdrecord</command> from dvdrtools) as a backup (this requires
    loopback block device support in the kernel).</para>

    <para os="e">Normally, you interact with Lilo by using the cursor and
    <literal>enter</literal> keys to select from the available option(s), but
    sometimes it is necessary to add other boot options, such as e.g.
    'init=/bin/bash' to debug boot failures. The more your keyboard layout
    differs from the US qwerty layout, the harder it becomes to type boot
    options unless Lilo knows about your keyboard layout. So, we will create a
    key table for Lilo (.ktl) file - at one point in the documentation these
    are referred to as .klt files, which may be a typo, but has been followed
    by some distros. The name, and location, are not important but it is
    conventional to put these in <filename class="directory">/boot</filename>
    with the name representing the key layout. For a British keyboard layout,
    the following command will achieve this:</para> 

<screen os="f" role="nodump"><userinput>keytab-lilo.pl uk >/boot/uk.ktl</userinput></screen>

    <para os="g">The argument to the command is the name of the keymap, or if
    necessary you can specify the full path to the keymap. Use whatever is
    appropriate for your keyboard.</para>

    <para os="h">When the x86 CLFS book used to include Lilo, it advised
    against running it from chroot in case the MBR became corrupted.
    Provided you have <filename class="directory">/proc</filename> mounted
    and have device special files for the disks, it seems to be safe to run
    recent versions of Lilo in chroot, although it is always possible that
    an updated bootloader, or defective configuration file, may render the
    system unbootable.</para>  

    <para os="i">The next step is to create
    <filename>/etc/lilo.conf</filename>:</para>

<screen os="j" role="nodump"><userinput>cat &gt; /etc/lilo.conf &lt;&lt; "EOF"
<literal># Begin /etc/lilo.conf
# lilo.conf
#
# global options
boot=/dev/&lt;bootdisk&gt;
keytable=/boot/&lt;keytable&gt;
lba32
map=/boot/map
prompt

# set the name of the default image to boot
default=clfs

# define an image
image=/boot/clfskernel
    label=clfs
    root=/dev/&lt;partition&gt;
    read-only
# optionally add parameters to pass, e.g.
#   append="video=radeonfb:1024x768-16@70"

# repeat for any other kernel images

# optionally, add legacy operating systems
# see man lilo.conf for examples 
EOF</literal></userinput></screen>


    <para os="k">Replace &lt;bootdisk&gt; with the name of the disk (or
    partition) on which the boot sector is to be written, e.g. sda.
    Replace &lt;keytable&gt; with the name of the keytable file you
    created, and &lt;partition&gt; with the name of the root partition
    for the new system.
    </para>

  <warning os="l">
    <para>The following command will overwrite the current boot loader.
    Do not run the command if this is not desired.</para>
  </warning>

    <para os="m">Run Lilo:</para>

<screen os="n" role="nodump"><userinput>/sbin/lilo -v</userinput></screen>

  <note os='o'>
    <para>People who have been used to GRUB need to be aware that Lilo works
    differently - in particular, you cannot edit the available choices as you
    can in the <command>grub</command> shell, and Lilo records the block
    addresses of the kernels into the boot blocks each time
    <command>/sbin/lilo</command> is run. This means that when you compile a
    new kernel, you have to add it to <filename>/etc/lilo.conf</filename> and
    rerun <command>/sbin/lilo</command>. It also means that if you recompile
    an existing kernel and save it to the same name you still have to rerun
    <command>/sbin/lilo</command> in case it now occupies different blocks on
    the filesystem.</para>
  </note>

    <para os="p">If you are running multiple systems on this box and using
    Lilo, it is a good idea to ensure that each system is running the same
    version of Lilo, otherwise an old version may not be able to overwrite
    the bootloader from a newer version. You will also need to ensure that the
    copies of <filename>/etc/lilo.conf</filename> on each system are kept
    synchronised.</para>

</sect1>