Gerald Skerbitz wrote: > I find the interface to be a nightmare even if it is more powerful. I personally think the grub commands and configuration file make more sense than lilo. It's just different. It's akin to going from windows to linux and is only daunting until you know the commands to do what you need to. I would call your frustration with it a function of ignorance rather than poor design on the part of the software. > The fact that the 3rd question in the FAQ is incomprehensible to a > newbie is a clue that there's a steep learning curve to getting to the > point where you can use grub effectively. > 3. Can I put Stage2 into a partition which is over 1024 cylinders? That question really has nothing to do with grub. It is there because of a limitation of older builds of lilo which barfed when the kernel wasn't installed within the first 1024 cylinders of the drive. People wanted to know if grub had the same limitation. It was a question that came up frequently and so was included in the FAQs. > If my newbie admin is sitting at a boot prompt in lilo, I can tell them to > type linux init=/bin/sh Most people will not be faced with a "grub prompt" unless something is wrong. Using a config file, grub gives you a menu to choose from complete with extra info to help modify those commands if necessary. The docs have a sample menu.lst that is well commented and easily edited for your specific situation. > You can do SOMETHING. Grub? Help me out here.....where is that > information? In the documentation just like it is with lilo. > > The lilo mini-HOWTO has (in this order) 1. a quick introduction, > 2.background info and standard install, 2. 1 where should I install it? > 2.2 how should i configure my ide hard drive and ..... > > 2.3 How Can I Interact at Boot Time? > Hmmm, looks just like the first four nodes of 'info grub'. > If Lilo is not configured to be interactive, press > and hold the <Alt> or <Shift> key before the ``LILO'' message appears. > etc... > Those are things that I didn't know and I'm not a newbie either, I was just ignorant of that nifty little bit of info(filing away for later). With grub, I can hit 'c' to drop to a prompt (if there is a menu set up), hit 'TAB' to get a list of commands available to me if I can't remember the right one and also hit 'TAB' to autocomplete paths to help me figure out where my root directories and kernels are. > I say don't recommend grub to newbies. lilo is better understood and > better documented. Grub is for doing hard things. Installing it may be > easy but using it is not. They clearly make the hard possible and the > easy hard. Subjective opinion, born out of frustration, I'm sure. ;-) > if you find it confusing and hard, it might not be you -- it might be > grub. > I find (and always have found) lilo confusing and hard, however, to end this on a less contrarian note, if you really want to get it set up and find the docs confusing, just ask. I would be more than happy to help you out. If you want a quick and dirty min-HOWTO for installing grub, I suggest the bootloader part of the gentoo installation docs. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-install.xml#doc_chap23 -- The Wandering Dru <dru at druswanderings.net> http://druswanderings.net <--- Things 'n' Such Get nifty TCLUG merchandise at the TCLUG Store! http://www.cafeshops.com/tclug _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list