[Courses][Linux commands] Grub or Lilo.

[Carla Schroder]

On Friday 16 April 2004 12:41 pm, Sue Stones wrote:
> I use only mandrake so far, but I have had no trouble installing grub from 
the 
> CD.  Perhaps they have re-written the grub-install.

grub-install is a shell script- are you referring to the grub-install command 
itself, or something else Mandrake-y?

> 
> What I am constantly wondering is why choose Grub over Lilo or vice vera.  
> What are the differences, and when are they significant.
> 

They're both good. GRUB has advantages, which are in the article I linked to:

- it operates independently of any operating system. If you set a up a 
separate /boot partition, you can install, remove, and reinstall Linux 
without having to reinstall and reconfigure the bootloader every time. Very 
handy for multi-boot systems, or systems where you're always futzing and 
changing things.

- it read filesystems, which LILO does not. So GRUB can find kernels and boot 
images anywhere, from the GRUB command shell. This is my fave feature, 'cause 
it means you can poke around on an unfamiliar system, and figure out how to 
boot it.This is also a potential security hole, since you can read any file 
on the system from the GRUB shell. And it means you don't have to bother 
about the 1024 cylinder limit, which is still an issue on older BIOSes.

- you can make changes on the fly, and not have to edit GRUB's config file 
every time you want to do something different

- LILO stores boot information in the MBR, instead of a file on a filesystem, 
so you have to reinstall it to the MBR every time you make a change. Which 
means an error can make your system unbootable. 

Both are good, I don't care which one folks use. :) Obviously I prefer GRUB, 
it does what I want, for the most part. 

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Carla Schroder
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