Vagabond Posted July 14, 2010 Author Share Posted July 14, 2010 Responses:1. Yes, AFAIK Lenny's GRUB is legacy. That might interfere with its detection of ext4 Slackware, eh? That may explain why GRUB tells me that the Slackware partition is ext2. (Still, I should think if GRUB detected ext2, it would carry on without fussing.) I have no problem with ext3 -- in fact some folks think it is better than ext4 -- so if I switched Slackware to ext3, I might accomplish something. 2. I can't bring myself to wipe Lenny. Since I installed, shortly after Lenny arrived, there have been a lot of security upgrades, and the simple fact is that my ADSL here in Thailand is often slower than 53 K dial-up. Lots of reasons for that, and no way around it. Wiping and reinstalling Slackware is very quick and easy for me, and definitely preferable. If I had a decent ISP, I might have a different view. 3. If Clonezilla works as advertised, it should be easy enough to move Lenny from sda to sdb. ("What could go wrong?" the captain of the Titanic asked.) 4. As I mentioned in a previous post, Slackware got very snotty with me about creating a LILO while sitting on the second disc in the box. It wants to be on sda, so LILO can be in the MBR. 5. Point 4 explains one reason why I am not sanguine about chainloading with GRUB in the MBR and LILO a non-default option. Another reason: it seems too tricky and conditional. From what I have seen of examples of dual-boot setups with Slackware the default in LILO, that should be easier ("What could go wrong?" asked General Custer). Once again: a plea for anyone with a dual-boot Linux + Slackware setup to spell out how you did it, and anyone who's played Move the Skyscraper with Clonezilla is also invited to comment. I'd like to avoid transplants, if possible. So: try the easy and harmless stuff first. I'm going to reinstall Slackware (quick and simple, actually) as ext3, and try various settings in the /boot/grub/menu.lst. What could go wrong? Thanks, everybody. I'm learning! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted July 14, 2010 Share Posted July 14, 2010 Just chainload Slackware and you will not have to do anything else. I have Slackware dual booted on one of my Arch machines and when it asked, I just installed Lilo to Slack's partition and added a chainload entry. title slackwareroot (hd0,6)chainloader +1 and it works beautifully. Moving partitions around and wiping out a distro just to be able to boot Slackware seems a bit extreme. Just make it easy and chainload. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagabond Posted July 14, 2010 Author Share Posted July 14, 2010 I appreciate the fact that everybody is trying to reduce my work! There are a few considerations that at the moment seem pretty important, and they may require me to do some serious rearranging.1. I'm not sure that I can create LILO with Slackware where it is. It may have to be on sda. -- So tell me, Josh, how many hard drives are in your box, and which one has Slackware on it? In your experience, does it matter? (I still can't understand why in the world it would matter. The Slackware error message that I got when I tried to create LILO was a shock and a puzzle.) Where is your LILO located? If I understand things, your LILO is not in your MBR, right? 2. If I start rearranging things drastically, I won't (deliberately) do any damage that can't be fixed easily and quickly. Wiping out my Lenny install would cause me tons of work over a long time. Wiping out my current Slackware install is trivial, however. Or it WILL be trivial, when I get the old junk parts replaced by new junk parts. ...I hate a marketplace that has no room for higher-priced quality products. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted July 14, 2010 Share Posted July 14, 2010 I have 2 drives in my machine but and Slackware is installed on my first harddrive, partition 6. During the Slackware installation, I chose to install lilo to /dev/sda6 (the Slackware partition). I would not think it would matter which harddrive Slackware is installed to as long as you install Lilo to Slackware's partition and not the MBR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagabond Posted July 15, 2010 Author Share Posted July 15, 2010 I would not think it would matter which harddrive Slackware is installed to as long as you install Lilo to Slackware's partition and not the MBR.My sentiments exactly, Josh. I suspect the fact that I am doing things I either have never done before or have done only very rarely and long ago means I have made some rookie mistakes, overlooked some tiny but vital details -- thus getting puzzling results and failures. So I'm eager to experiment with everything, maybe too eager. Today I'm off to the junk shops for some hardware. I notice, BTW, that laptops or whatever they are called now are all the rage, with fewer shops selling desktops. Considering the fact that cheaper is considered better, I expect a lot of the portables won't hold up. The typical consumer's mindset hurts everyone, including the workers who toil in the sweatshops -- many of those people are little better than slaves. "Cheap" computers come at a very high price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagabond Posted July 16, 2010 Author Share Posted July 16, 2010 Reinstalled Slackware (total size about 6 GB) with ext3 fs, and when it came time to create LILO, got this message (edited down): "Warning:/dev/sdb1 is not on the first disk." Then there was some fussing about video and a threat to deliver text only as part of the bootscreen. Also this "Warning: device 0x0820: Inconsistent partition table, 1st entry. CHS address in PT: 0:1:1 --> LBA(62). LBA addressin PT: 6184 --> CHS (0:99:47) Fatal: Either FIX TABLE or IGNORE TABLE must be specified." Fix how?The change from ext4 to ext3 was no help with GRUB.Shrank sda2 and installed Slackware on sda5. LILO still impossible to create, but the error message is now minus the complaint aboutSlackware's location; the rest of the error message is as above.Results of $ fdisk -l /dev/sda :Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylindersUnits = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytesDisk identifier: 0x0000b026 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System/dev/sda1 1 12 96358+ 83 Linux/dev/sda2 13 4887 39158437+ 83 Linux/dev/sda3 4888 5143 2056320 82 Linux swap / Solaris/dev/sda4 5144 9729 36837045 5 Extended/dev/sda5 * 5144 9481 34844953+ 83 Linux/dev/sda6 9482 9729 1992028+ 82 Linux swap / SolarisNo floppy drive in my box, so I made a USB boot stick for Slackware, hoping to edit LILO config file. USB stick won't work -- "This is nota bootable disk, etc etc."Tried to use info from USB stick in GRUB, no good, naturally. Can't boot into Slackware, and because there is no LILO, can't chainload (or?). IMO I made a rookie mistake -- it's simple,overlooked, and will be embarrassing. Suggestions? TIA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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