Chapter 7 Booting Table of Contents 7.1 LILO 7.2 LOADLIN 7.3 Dual Booting The process of booting your Linux system can sometimes be easy and sometimes be difficult. Many users install Slackware on their computer and thats it. They just turn it on and its ready to use. Othertimes, simply booting the machine can be a chore. For most users, LILO works best. Slackware includes LILO and Loadlin for booting Slackware Linux. LILO will work from a hard drive partition, a hard drives master boot record, or a floppy disk, making it a very versatile tool. Loadlin works from a DOS command line, killing DOS and invoking Linux. Another popular utility for booting Linux is GRUB. GRUB is not included or officially supported by Slackware. Slackware holds to the “tried and true” standard for what gets included inside the distribution. While GRUB works well and includes some features that LILO does not, LILO handles all the essential tasks of a boot loader reliably with a proven track record. Being younger, GRUB hasnt quite lived up to that legacy yet. As it is not included with Slackware, we do not discuss it here. If you wish to use GRUB (perhaps it came with another Linux OS and you want to use it to dual-boot) consult GRUBs documentation. This section covers using LILO and Loadlin, the two booters included with Slackware. It also explains some typical dual booting scenarios and how you could go about setting it up.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 10:26:06 +0000