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### Dual boot hard drives using Lilo?

Toby.Upham at mydata.com [(Toby.Upham at mydata.com)]

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:04:40 -0500

Good Day!

I have a bit of a challenge on my hands that I think you can help me with. My company (as listed below) makes automated computer placement machines that run on a Linux platform. We have used RedHat exclusively for years. Recently, we have upgraded to a Fedora version.

Into the Linux, we have our own GUI that is used for menu's, data entry, etc. We call it TPSys (Test and Place System). Well, there are many versions of TPSys that have been released over the years. Each version gives new features, some mechanical support, many software improvements.

I am the corporate trainer for this company. I am in a situation now where we just released a new version of the TPSys. Many customers that we have won't be elegible or just won't get the new software, so I'm in a situation where I now have to offer courses on older TPSys software, as well as new! I need to have my demo machine running the software applicable to that course. Short of changing the hard drive each time, I would like to have the machine be a dual boot system so that I can choose.

I have several options at hand. I have a secondary IDE spot that I can put a slave H/D, or, I can partition the drive (it's 80Gig, where we really only need a 40Gig partition to run).

My question for you guys is this...... if I edit the lilo.conf file, there is a boot line. The standard line that is in my machine is "boot=/dev/hda". What do I need to add in order have the choice of which hard drive to boot from? Is there a way to do this, and do you know of anyone using this in a practical way?

I really appreciate your time. Thank you in advance.

Best Regards,

Toby S. Upham

Corporate Trainer

    --
    MYDATA automation, Inc.
    320 Newburyport Turnpike
    Rowley, MA  01969
    Tel: (978) 948-6919
    Fax: (978) 948-6915

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Thomas Adam [thomas.adam22 at gmail.com]

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 12:16:29 +0000

On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:04:40 -0500 Toby.Upham at mydata.com wrote:

    >      My question for you guys is this...... if I edit the lilo.conf
    > file, there is a boot line. The standard line that is in my machine
    > is "boot=/dev/hda". What do I need to add in order have the choice of
    > which hard drive to boot from? Is there a way to do this, and do you
    > know of anyone using this in a practical way?

Right, the "boot=/dev/hda" line tells LILO where to install the MBR. This bears no relation in telling LILO about any other drives you have. If this secondary drive you want to install just has another copy of Linux on it, then just continue adding more stanzas to your /etc/lilo.conf, as in:

    image=/boot/kernel-2.6.17-2
      label=myOtherOS      # Name we give to this section
      read-only            # Start with a read-only root. Do not alter!
      root=/dev/hdb2       # Location of the root filesystem

Note for the above you will clearly have to change a few things -- most notably the "root=" line.

-- Thomas Adam

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Toby.Upham at mydata.com [(Toby.Upham at mydata.com)]

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:22:57 -0500

Thank you so much. I understand. I will try this!

Best Regards,

Toby S. Upham

Corporate Trainer

    --
    MYDATA automation, Inc.
    320 Newburyport Turnpike
    Rowley, MA  01969
    Tel: (978) 948-6919
    Fax: (978) 948-6915

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Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 06:56:24 -0700

On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 07:04:40AM -0500, Toby.Upham at mydata.com wrote:

    >    Good Day!
    >
    >         I have a bit of a challenge on my hands that I think you can help me
    >    with. My company (as listed below) makes automated computer placement
    >    machines that run on a Linux platform. We have used RedHat exclusively for
    >    years. Recently, we have upgraded to a Fedora version.

[ ... ]

    >         I have several options at hand. I have a secondary IDE spot that I
    >    can put a slave H/D, or, I can partition the drive (it's 80Gig, where we
    >    really only need a 40Gig partition to run).
    >
    >         My question for you guys is this...... if I edit the lilo.conf file,
    >    there is a boot line. The standard line that is in my machine is
    >    "boot=/dev/hda". What do I need to add in order have the choice of which
    >    hard drive to boot from? Is there a way to do this, and do you know of
    >    anyone using this in a practical way?

Why not just keep the partitioning scheme you've got, and set up as many chroot environments as you need? Unless your program actually requires different kernel versions, there shouldn't be any need for multiple booting.

    --
    * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

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