Re: Device Numbers, LILO

Re: Device Numbers, LILO

[mirabilos]

>That's not the issue.  LILO takes whatever you pass to root= and converts
>it to a device number at /sbin/lilo time.  An idiotic practice on the
>part of LILO, in my opinion, that ought to have been fixed a long time
>ago.

That's why you have to use append="root=blah" for devfs :)
Really it should have been in IMO. Btw, is LBA support in?
Last time I saw a LILO manpage it stated that "linear" still
is restricted to 16bit (65535 sectors) which normally is much
less than 1k cylinders...

-mirabilos
-- 
by telnet

Re: Device Numbers, LILO

[Nico Schottelius]

mirabilos wrote:

> >That's not the issue.  LILO takes whatever you pass to root= and converts
> >it to a device number at /sbin/lilo time.  An idiotic practice on the
> >part of LILO, in my opinion, that ought to have been fixed a long time
> >ago.
>
> That's why you have to use append="root=blah" for devfs :)

I don't really think you have to. With 'lba32'
enabled (maybe also without that ... ) and just using lilo
normally it works with devfs.


Nico

ps: lilo.conf:

boot=/dev/discs/disc0/disc
lba32
...
image = /boot/244nospeak
  root = /dev/root
  label = nospeak
  append = "LOC=HOME"



flapp:~/bootdisk # lilo -V
LILO version 21.6

Re: Device Numbers, LILO

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <20010515121635.B5C402F84AC@www.topmail.de>
By author:    mirabilos <eccesys@topmail.de>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> >That's not the issue.  LILO takes whatever you pass to root= and converts
> >it to a device number at /sbin/lilo time.  An idiotic practice on the
> >part of LILO, in my opinion, that ought to have been fixed a long time
> >ago.
> 
> That's why you have to use append="root=blah" for devfs :)
> Really it should have been in IMO. Btw, is LBA support in?
> Last time I saw a LILO manpage it stated that "linear" still
> is restricted to 16bit (65535 sectors) which normally is much
> less than 1k cylinders...
> 

It's in, but for some strange reason you have to ask for it explicitly
with the "lba32" option.

	-hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt

Re: Device Numbers, LILO

[Tim Fletcher]

> It's in, but for some strange reason you have to ask for it explicitly
> with the "lba32" option.

Because the 32bit bios calls lilo uses in lba32 mode can cause problems
with broken or old bios's hence is defaults to a safe option, and if you
can't boot without it (over 1023 cylinders) then you turn it on at your
own risk.

I know this from the experiance of breaking lilo on my workstation :)

-- 
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irc: Night-Shade on openprojects   ^^-^^

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Re: Device Numbers, LILO

[H. Peter Anvin]

Tim Fletcher wrote:
> 
> > It's in, but for some strange reason you have to ask for it explicitly
> > with the "lba32" option.
> 
> Because the 32bit bios calls lilo uses in lba32 mode can cause problems
> with broken or old bios's hence is defaults to a safe option, and if you
> can't boot without it (over 1023 cylinders) then you turn it on at your
> own risk.
> 
> I know this from the experiance of breaking lilo on my workstation :)
> 

The problem is that LILO tries one or the other, instead of dynamically
using whichever one it needs.  Heck, you may not be able to make that
decision until boot time anyway!  You can then either always try LBA
calls and see if they are available, or default to CHS calls unless
cylinder > 1023.

LILO tries to do *way* too much at install time.  The fact that you have
to specify "linear" explicitly is a joke -- there is no excuse for
!linear.

	-hpa

-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt