<rxl124@hehe.com> wrote in message
news:8a1229a0.0307170705.21c53ae2@posting.google.c om...
> "Jacob Westenbach" <westy528@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<hsgRa.79778$xg5.27257@twister.austin.rr.com> ...
> > <rxl124@hehe.com> wrote in message
> > news:8a1229a0.0307160936.5f7e6a7a@posting.google.c om...
> > > I have redhat 8.0
> > >
> > > I am experimenting w/ lilo and see if I can make it
> > >
> > > actually, i am tring to make it that lilo boot up sequence will fail
> > >
> > > I tried few things
> > > 1)messing w/ lilo.conf
> > > 2)removing lilo.conf all toghether
> > > 3)moving or messing w/ /boot folder
> >
> > If what you're wanting is a way to completely keep lilo from running,
boot a
> > DOS disk and run "fdisk /mbr" to re-write the master boot record of the
> > disk. Again, you'll need a boot floppy or recovery disk to boot Linux.
> >
> I guess the reason I am doing is I want to learn about the boot
> process.
>
> Now, my question is, I went ahead and did mess w/ lilo.conf(even
> removed it) and then ran /sbin/lilo -v -v. which would not compile.
> Does lilo program look at /etc/lilo.conf when it boots?
> Also does lilo program(when in booting process), look at /boot
> directory?
>
> I guess above would be more valid question.

OK, now it makes a little more sense. I'll attempt an explanation of the
lilo/boot actions.

First, lilo only reads the /etc/lilo.conf when it is executed as root while
the system is running. Lilo reads each stanza (paragraph) of the .conf file
and effectively creates a boot menu from that data which is written to the
location you specify (generally to the mbr of the boot disk). The first
stanza in the list becomes the default (fall-through) action for booting.

When the machine is next booted, the "menu" created by lilo is activated by
the boot process presenting the various options created from the lilo.conf
stanzas. The selection of an option tells the boot process which partition
to mount in order to see the rest of the code necessary for the machine to
reach a useable state. That code can be stored anywhere you prefer, but the
most frequently used is the mountpoint of /boot which is also usually an
ext2 partition to aid in the use of utilities without having to load modules
to support other filesystem types (ext3, reiserfs, jfs, etc.).

More detailed info can be obtained from :

http://www.togaware.com/linux/surviv...ing_Linux.html

JW