LILO BOOTING PROBLEM

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: LILO BOOTING PROBLEM
started by: gregc

Posted by gregc on Mar. 29 2007,04:44

After successfully running DSL on my thinkpad Celeron 700 128 ram I decided to use the Toram option but found it difficult to achieve until I found out Lilo gives the Toram option while setting up the install-solving my first problem.
However, after reinstalled with Lilo with Toram I now have this problem.
Booting only just starts then I get this :

GRUB loading,please wait........
ERROR 15

It would seem like it wants to load grub even though I did a LILO install.
Can anyone help -Ive been all day on this.

Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 29 2007,06:28

Quote (gregc @ Mar. 28 2007,23:44)

You have the same options available in GRUB if you enter the cheatcode(s) when you boot to install OR if you add it when you do the installation OR afterward. Did you miss that in all of the stuff you read? It's there. If you did miss it, all you had to do was add the FIVE little letters -- "toram" -- to one little line in your GRUB menu.list I told you to add (and didn't someone else tell you to edit that in the other day?) and everything would've been okay. I even showed you the part in the other thread you needed to change. Why did you try to reinstall when there was nothing wrong with it before?

Okay, since you were all trigger happy you now have GRUB in your MBR and that's conflicting with LILO. If you want to use LILO (which isn't as easy to "fix" either now or down the road), you'll first have to clear GRUB from your MBR. Then you'll have to do your LILO manually.

1. Remove GRUB:
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/DRIVE bs=446 count=1

Where drive is hda or whatever your hard drive is. That's the easy part.

2. Now you can reinstall LILO. For that, you're on your own unless someone else wants to walk you through it.
< http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/LILO.html >

Or you can just clear out as in step 1, reinstall (again!) with GRUB, add five letters to menu.list, and if you don't like that option -- or want to mess around with others -- you can change it around however you want by re-editing menu.list without having to keep running LILO again and again.

But it's your choice. Whatever you decide, have fun.

Posted by gregc on Mar. 29 2007,08:22

BACK TO YOU LUCKY-I am a sixty year old trying to learn this stuff and gave up on yesterdays suggestions when I couldnt understand how to carry them out.I found the tone in your answer was quite critical of me.I feel bad enough as it is without you making me feel worse.
I guess EVEN YOU had troubles when you were just starting out
as well.Hopefully no one belittled you.
However you did take the time to help and thank you for that and I will try your suggestions.
To answer some of your questions of me-
I wished to change my successful Frugal install because it is supposed to be a quicker OS using TORAM.
You gave me two suggested references-one which you said OOPS- was incorrect so I disregarded it.As for the other suggestion, I did an install using the pdf from the mirror you referred to.This is, in fact,is a lilo install and i followed it exactly and ended with the problem I now have.

Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 29 2007,09:13

Mikshaw, hats, and I all offered you the same instructions -- open menu.list and edit in five letters (toram). Save it and you're done. From there it's just a reboot to load DSL into RAM. Nobody ever said reinstall. Nobody ever said to use LILO instead of GRUB (I would've tried to discourage you if I'd known that you were going to do that for the very reason you're having issues now). You did that in spite of what all three of us told you:

Mikshaw:

Quote

Look for Grub's menu.lst file in /boot/grub on the partition where DSL was installed... Add "toram"

hats:

Quote

edit /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst
with any text editor (beaver, vi, nano, etc) using root privileges.

lucky13:

Quote

The process of editing the menu.list, though, is the same with respect to which line toram goes...lang=us toram frugal home=wherever opt=wherever host=whatever

Did you get GRUB removed from your MBR? Did you get everything set up okay? :cool:

If you want some more help, ask. Whether you want my opinion or not, here it is:
1. Get GRUB out of MBR using the dd command string above.
2. Boot the live CD using the options you want installed:

Code Sample

toram home=whicheverpartition opt=whicheverpartition lang=us host=whatevernameyouwantyourcomputertohave

and anything else your system requires. What you enter there will carry over when you install.
3. Re-install DSL frugal as you planned.
4. I would recommend you use GRUB so you can more easily remove add other codes without fiddling with LILO and without feeling you have to reinstall.
5. Ask questions and listen to the answers.

Posted by gregc on Mar. 29 2007,09:30

Lucky
Be gentle I am new at this .
I can reinstall using grub- I find that easy but cant follow where or how to go about the editing needed for the permanent change to toram.
Will be back in five with a freshly loaded grub frugal to play with.
If you can walk me thru it would be good.
Thanks

Please note I have followed your advice and I now have a fresh GRUB frugal install.Of all the suggestions which one is the easiest to get Toram.
Most suggestions required editing lines which I have no idea how to find.
eg; I do not know how to find menu lists.

Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 29 2007,09:34

Quote

I wished to change my successful Frugal install because it is supposed to be a quicker OS using TORAM.

It can be quicker that way, but it depends on your hardware. How much RAM do you have? How big is your swap? If you don't like it toram, are you prepared to tackle LILO again? The benefit of GRUB over LILO will be apparent if you decide to make any changes. GRUB's menu.list is (edit: easily) edited and reasonably easy to understand. LILO requires you edit lilo.conf, which isn't as "user-friendly" as menu.list, and then run lilo.

Quote

You gave me two suggested references-one which you said OOPS- was incorrect so I disregarded it.

I wrote, "Oops, the first link is the wrong one. The process of editing the menu.list, though, is the same with respect to which line toram goes..."

Posted by gregc on Mar. 29 2007,09:49

Im back with a new GRUB frugal install. what is the easiest way now to get TORAM.

Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 29 2007,10:48

1. Right click on the emelfm icon, select open as root/super user. Or you can open it from the menu, but you have to be root to edit menu.lst.

2. In the right pane, go to /boot/grub. Find menu.lst. Double click on it. It will open up in beaver (text editor) after asking you what you want to do -- you want to view file.

3. You need to make sure you have the first (default) entry that loads with your particular partition set up with the bootcodes you want for your computer: frugal, where your /home and /opt partitions are, toram, frugal, restore, etc. Make sure the toram one is there and not commented out (# is the comment out symbol). Make sure the partitions are right for your computer.

4. Don't panic and start over from scratch if you don't get it right the first time. You'll only have to go back and fix the entry you use to load DSL. If you DO run into another issue with getting it working, come back here and paste in your menu.lst so someone can help you (I will if I'm around; I have meetings all day). That's where the issue will be -- in that one file.

5. No hard feelings, okay?

Posted by humpty on Mar. 30 2007,17:24

1. Open a terminal (click on the 'X Term' icon)

Inside the terminal you can type commands.
type in the commands as suggested below and then <enter>

2. Find out where menu.lst is,

in the terminal try,
ls /mnt/hda1/boot/grub/menu.lst
(there is a space after 'ls')

if it is there, it shows "/mnt/hda1/boot/grub/menu.lst"

if it isn't there, you get an error message. in which case
you need to change the partition name;
e.g
ls /mnt/hda2/boot/grub/menu.lst
or ls /mnt/hdb1/boot/grub/menu.lst

basically you need to find where the grub installation put
the file menu.lst. (i'm assuming hda1 for the commands below)

3. Once step 2 is successful, you now edit it.
but first become the 'root' user (an account which let's
you play god).

In the same terminal,
sudo su

4. Now edit the menu.lst file,

In the same terminal,
beaver /mnt/hda1/boot/grub/menu.lst

a text editor (called beaver) pops up with the contents of
menu.lst.

5. Inside beaver, find the first line that looks something like this;

kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1 quiet vga=normal noacpi noapm nodma noscsi frugal

6. at the end of the line add the word ' toram' (including the space),
so now you have;

kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1 quiet vga=normal noacpi noapm nodma noscsi frugal toram

7. Save the file,
from the beaver menu,
File > Save

8. Reboot.
(right click on the desktop, >Power Down>Reboot.

Posted by gregc on Mar. 31 2007,01:43

Quote (lucky13 @ Mar. 29 2007,05:48)

Hi lucky thanks for hanging in there- no hard feelings-For your info Ive got a thinkpad celeron700 128 ram.Will that be better running with the toram option? or is all this wasting time?

I followed your instruction carefully many times with the same result-entered as super root
got the grub menu list on the right side of screen double clicked and got the choices up but when I clicked on view the file nothing happens.

Likewise following Humpty carefully I got the message no such file or directory for both the linux and swap partitions.

Posted by gregc on Mar. 31 2007,01:49

Thanks Humpty
Followed to the letter but always get same response fo both my partitions-
no such file or directory.

Posted by Wittfella on Mar. 31 2007,02:04

Hey gregc, I think 128mb might be a little tight for the toram option, it might not be worth your while.

I was playing with a frugal install on an old desktop but it has 384mb of ram, and honestly I could not tell the difference between toram on or off, so I left it off.

However, I'm not sure why you are getting those errors trying to edit the menu.lst, mine works ok, but you can try toram temporarily straight from the grub command at startup.

When the grub list appears, hit 'e' to edit, hit 'e' again and then you can change the boot options. Just add toram to the end of the line. Hit 'enter' when done, and then 'b' to boot.

Cheers,
Witty

Posted by gregc on Mar. 31 2007,02:29

Hi witty
My impression was that if it fits on the ram- and it should do in my case- it would make it quicker; but maybe not .In your case you have a quick computer anyway-at least compared to mine.
Maybe others will enlighten us on the speed issue.
GREG

Posted by gregc on Mar. 31 2007,08:16

Quote (lucky13 @ Mar. 29 2007,05:48)

2. In the right pane, go to /boot/grub. Find menu.lst. Double click on it. It will open up in beaver (text editor) after asking you what you want to do -- you want to view file.

3. You need to make sure you have the first (default) entry that loads with your particular partition set up with the bootcodes you want for your computer: frugal, where your /home and /opt partitions are, toram, frugal, restore, etc. Make sure the toram one is there and not commented out (# is the comment out symbol). Make sure the partitions are right for your computer.

I spent a long time on this but each time I pressed View File-nothing happened.
I then found by rt click on beaver I entered beaver as super user and I have been able to bring up the menu file.BUT the file is in READ ONLY
What to do now?
Also I notice that the bootcodes dont have the correct partition on them-how can the computer boot up with the incorrect hda # ?
THANKS

Posted by curaga on Mar. 31 2007,13:28

grub uses it's own numbers for partitions (hda1 is (hd0,0))...
Seems you found the file.. Give more specific info so we can help, root is god and can do anything..

By the way, DSL just flies on my 128-mb laptop from cd, so it will be even faster when booted off a hard disk.

Posted by roberts on Mar. 31 2007,14:15

There are two locations of grub's menu.lst.
This might be the cause of the confusion.

There is one off of / which is used for a traditional hard install, which is seen by frugal as read-only and is not used in a frugal environment. This location was used as a template during the frugal install.

For frugal installations the menu.lst is on the partition where you did the frugal install. Under normal, non-toram mode, this partition is mounted at /cdrom (rw)

Typing the mount command will show this fact.

Therefore as user root, or super-user, edit /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst

Note that once you have added and then booted frugal toram the above is no longer true. Again look at the results of the mount command. Your installed partition is no longer mounted under /cdrom instead /cdrom is mounted over /dev/shm

You would then, as user root, first mount the frugally installed partition, lets say it is hda4

# mount /mnt/hda4

then edit the menu.lst located at

/mnt/hda4/boot/grub/menu.lst

Posted by gregc on April 01 2007,03:51

Quote (roberts @ Mar. 31 2007,09:15)

There are two locations of grub's menu.lst.
This might be the cause of the confustion.

There is one off of / which is used for a traditional hard install, which is seen by frugal as read-only and is not used in a frugal environment. This location was used as a template during the frugal install.

For frugal installations the menu.lst is on the partition where you did the frugal install. Under normal, non-toram mode, this partition is mounted at /cdrom (rw)

Typing the mount command will show this fact.

Therefore as user root, or super-user, edit /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst

Note that once you have added and then booted frugal toram the above is no longer true. Again look at the results of the mount command. Your installed partition is no longer mounted under /cdrom instead /cdrom is mounted over /dev/shm

You would then, as user root, first mount the frugally installed partition, lets say it is hda4

# mount /mnt/hda4

then edit the menu.lst located at

/mnt/hda4/boot/grub/menu.lst

Hi Roberts,
As we say in Australia -GOOD ONYA MATE!
You gave me the final key which was to open the /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst in Beaver as super user (RT click) and add toram on the first DSL line without #

Thanks to all those helping along the way-you all taught me something.
After my long road to solving this I would like to see a simple step by step that could be referred to in Dillo along with a brief comment on who could benefit from TORAM.Something like this in Dillo:
Those with .....CPU.......Ram......HD -BLA,BLA,BLA.....etc
would benefit from a frugal install with the TORAM option and should go to.....................(I still dont know who benefits from using TORAM)

.HELP SHEET REFERRED TO:
Here a brief dicussion of the pros and cons of grub vs lilo.( Im not sure which is best although Lucky says grub)
If a lilo install is chosen the toram option is included in setup but dont do a grub install first as grub is hard to remove and gets in the way of your lilo install.With this option there is no need to read on.
After doing the frugal grub install, it is possible at EACH boot to edit toram into the boot process by pressing "e" then scroll to end of the line press "e" again and add "toram" at end and press "b"
For a permanent change:
reboot after your frugal install without choosing toram at boot stage.
RT CLICK on Beaver icon and choose the superuser option.
L click on the open file icon
Type-/cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst (THATS a lower case L there )
Up comes the menu ready for you to add toram.
Find the Dsl options and put toram at end of the choice you will be taking at each boot-it must not have # at the beginning of the line.
click file at top left and click on save.
DONE

This is a Newbie style help sheet which could be missing some things but it could be cleaned up and used.
I would like to help those coming after me.
GREG

Posted by humpty on April 01 2007,21:02

congrats.

(man i'm so glad i first chose to boot from freedos

)