1 README for project LILO
2 =======================
5 Versoin 23.1 (release) -- Joachim Wiedorn <ad_debian@joonet.de>
6 ---------------------------------------------------------------
10 The patch in 23.0 for better support for inaccessible disks based
11 on problems with usb sticks. But this option 'inaccessible' is only
12 usable, if hard disks can not be accessed by the BIOS, but always
13 by linux. This option does not concern usb sticks, which will always
14 bring failures if they are named in the lilo.conf. So I have removed
15 this patch from the new version.
17 Computing vmlinux size:
19 From the compressed kernel vmlinuz the size of the uncompressed
20 file must be compute to decide whether the initrd can be copied
21 in the memory <15M. But with the newer 64bit kernels this factor
22 changed from nearly "3" to nearly "6". "6" is now default.
24 Working on degraded RAID device:
26 If the first physical device of a RAID1 array is faulty or removed,
27 lilo fails to install. It doesn't get valid informations about the
28 device and didn't resume with the next disk. Lilo now loop through
29 all devices to get the disk geometry.
31 Working with MD RAID 1.0 standard:
33 Turned off the error "Inconsistent Raid version information" for
34 Version 1.0 MD RAID mirror pairs. It also corrects the error message,
35 as the version information is just incompatible not inconsistent.
37 No other charges are required as 1.0 devices have the same layout
38 as v0.90 devices except that they work with drives in excess of 2TB.
39 It does not update for version 1.2 raid superblocks, this would
40 require a much more complex patch.
42 With the following lilo.conf the standard debian initrd and kernel
43 boot off of an LVM logical drive on an MD RAID-1 array consisting of
44 two whole disk devices (e.g. /dev/sda & /dev/sdb). Now the array can
45 use version 1.0 superblocks, so these devices can be e.g. the new
46 3 TByte Seagate drives.
48 Configuration example:
51 | raid-extra-boot=mbr-only
56 | append="quiet root=/dev/mapper/vg0-root"
64 Versoin 23.0 (release) -- Joachim Wiedorn <ad_debian@joonet.de>
65 ---------------------------------------------------------------
67 Option 'small-memory':
69 New option to define, that kernel+initrd should always set into the
70 low memory under 15M. But if this is impossible, lilo try to use the
71 high memory above 16M for initrd and give you a warning.
73 Option 'large-memory':
75 This option enables using memory above 16Mb for the initrd (up to a
76 kernel imposed limit of around 768Mb) which is usable on nearly all
77 newer systems with post-2000 BIOSes. Details can be found in manpage
80 No option 'large-memory' or 'small-memory':
82 If no option is set in the configuration, then lilo will check the
83 needed memory space and give you some informations about the result
84 and its decision in verbose mode.
85 If you need the old behaviour, please use the option 'small-memory'.
87 Installation into a subdirectory:
89 If you want to install all lilo files into a specific directory which
90 is not the root directory "/", then use the shell variable DESTDIR to
91 set an absolut path for installation:
93 make install DESTDIR=/home/myself/test/lilo/
95 make install DESTDIR=`pwd`/test/
97 WARNING: You always need an absolute path! This behaviour have changed
98 since version 22.x. The old variable ROOT is obsolete for installing.
100 Using UUIDs for partitions:
102 In the configuration file of lilo all lines with 'root=' can be used
103 together with UUIDs. To extract your UUIDs let run the program blkid.
106 #OLD#root = /dev/hda6 = /dev/sda6
107 root = "UUID=5472fd8e-9089-4256-bcaa-ceab4f01a439"
109 But then you should also use a similar expression for the 'boot=' line.
110 Unfortunately you cannot use UUIDs because devices haven't any UUIDs.
111 The solution is using the udev device names which can be found in
112 /dev/disks/by-id/ i. e. for a PATA disk:
114 boot = /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_SV1604N_S01FJ10X999999
116 or i. e. for a SATA disk :
118 boot = /dev/disk/by-id/ata-SAMSUNG_HD502HI_S1VZJ90S999999