Will this work?

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Will this work?
started by: Shades

Posted by Shades on Jan. 16 2006,15:08

OK! I've posted a couple times on here about trying to get DSL dual booted on my regular pc with XP Pro. I've got two hard drives XP Pro on the primary and I want DSL on the secondary. I've tried over and over to get either lilo or grub installed on my MBR but no dice. Here's what I got/plan to have,

AMD Athlon XP 2200 cpu
256mb memory
40 gig hd (XP Pro)
20 gig hd (currently Yoper Linux)

Since I couldn't get lilo to install on the hda mbr with DSL after about two weeks of trying I thought I'd try a different approach. I grabbed my Yoper Linux and installed it back onto the 20 gig hd and had it setup lilo on hda mbr successfully. Then I had a thought!!! I've got the Yoper disk partitioned like I would for DSL. Yoper makes working with the lilo.conf file a breeze. So I thought what I could do is, edit the lilo.conf file in Yoper and have it rewrite the lilo on the mbr. I would essentially take yoper out of the lilo mbr and then when I reboot use my "My 1st DSL" remaster cd and boot into DSL and then install it over the Yoper but not add a boot loader at the end of the install. Then when I reboot I'm thinking that my original lilo on the hda mbr will be intact and already pointing to DSL on hdb2. I need to know two things though.

1. Will this work?

2. Can someone please post the proper DSL lilo.conf file so I can change the lilo.conf file in Yoper to drop Yoper and replace it with DSL.

I'm also giving consideration of possibly leaving my Yoper intact and resizing the hard drive and just add DSL to that and have a triple boot machine. I'm not a 100% sure which way I'll go with it just yet. After loading Yoper I realized how much I liked using it before BUT I miss using the DSL more and I like the simplicity of DSL too.

Any help will be appreciated!

:cool:

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 16 2006,17:39

I'm not sure about replacing, but i can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work.

You can add as many distros as you want, theoretically. What I've done with my system is similar, but using a different distro and different bootloader. I originally had just suse with grub. I resized the suse partition and added two more partitions...one for slackware and one for DSL. I installed those 2 distros, but didn't install a bootloader for either of them. Then I added an entry for each to suse's grub config, and that's it.

Sorry i don't know anything about working with LILO.

Posted by Shades on Jan. 16 2006,20:23

Thanks Mikshaw! The more I thought about it the more I thought it would work too. This is my current lilo.conf file:

prompt
timeout=60
default=YOS
vga=791
boot=/dev/hda

lba32

bitmap = /boot/yoper_boot.bmp
bmp-colors = 1,,0,2,,0
bmp-table = 120p,173p,1,15,17
bmp-timer = 254p,432p,1,0,0

image=/boot/yos
label=YOS
read-only
root=/dev/hdb2
append = "splash=silent "
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.8.1-3.img

other=/dev/hda1
label=Windows

What would I need to change for it to point to DSL if I take Yoper out? What would I need to add if I decide to leave Yoper on the hdb2 and resize the partition and add DSL also? I know , Mikshaw that you said you don't know much about lilo this is for any one else that happens to read these posts.

:cool:

Posted by Shades on Jan. 17 2006,03:40

This is what I've come up with so far but it doesn't work!

prompt
timeout="60"
default=YOS
vga="791"
boot="/dev/hda"
lba32
bitmap = /boot/yoper_boot.bmp
bmp-colors = 1,,0,2,,0
bmp-table = 120p,173p,1,15,17
bmp-timer = 254p,432p,1,0,0

image="/boot/yos"
label="YOS"
read-only
root="/dev/hdb2"
append="splash=silent"
initrd="/boot/initrd-2.6.8.1-3.img"

other=/dev/hda1
label=Windows

other=/dev/hdb3
label="Damn Small Linux"
root="dev/hdb3"
initrd="/boot/linux24"

When I run lilo I get this error message:

Fatal: First sector of /dev/hdb3 doesn't have a valid boot signature

Any ideas anyone?

:cool: