New LILO Breaks 1024-Cyl Limit 208
slambo writes: "Everyone's favorite bootloader, LILO has been updated to remove the 1024-cylinder limit. LILO now supports disks up to 2Tb. "
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New LILO Breaks 1024-Cyl Limit
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Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. -- Robert Benchley
Timely? (Score:1)
Re:WhaaasssUUUUp? (Score:1)
2 TB! Methinks you're too used to l33t sp33k! (Score:1)
I hope I get this explanation right. (Score:1)
Also you can now install new kernels much easier in RH and it's cousins by eliminating the small
%make bZlilo
after compiling your new kernel.
Good for us lazy folks
LILO story under Linux?? (Score:1)
Re:LILO vs GURD err, i mean GRUB (Score:1)
and more importantly
o Once it is set up you don't have to tell
it about new kernels if you don't want to
because it can
o Read ext2/msdos/minix/... filesystems
natively which means you can boot any
file. This also means you can
o cat
and it will search you partitions for
the file and cat it and
o Most importantly it has file/disk/partition
completion from the boot prompt.
o It can even do a nice menu (that you can
always escape to a prompt from).
o As it is a GRand Unified Boot loader, you
can also boot 95/98/NT/*BSD... and
o Use the same command line from inside
your OS to try it out and set things up.
I liked it so much, I made an rpm [caltech.edu] so I could easily put it on all of my computers. Beware, it is still in alpha/beta.
LILO, no more...
Re:What comes next? (Score:1)
You must be new.... (Score:1)
lim(version->1)GPL_ware=$$$
Since $ is a sin, that all must be under
It's only part of problem (Score:1)
Re:great but LILO still needs...an enema (Score:1)
One big problem with LILO is that it won't boot your system if you've moved the kernel to a different set of blocks on the hard drive. GRUB and other more intelligent boot loaders actually understand the filesystem and can be told to blindly load a previously specified filename, and many have a command line interface that allows the user to find a different kernel to load at boot time.
The best solution would be to rebuild the underlying methods by which PCs are created. A 512 byte MBR is an artifact of the original IBM PC, which is nearing it's 20th anniversary. BIOSes of today are built upon legacy after legacy, even though we have a few more modern operating systems out there today (like Linux, HURD, and the *BSDs. Ok, NT too..) that would much rather have a fully contiguous block of memory rather than the chunkified model that evolved along with the PC.
Anyway, I'd be really happy if someone decided to make MBR's be 100kB in size or at least something a *little* larger than 512 bytes. Or heck, the BIOS itself could be redesigned to understand filesystems and kernels..
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA [opendvd.org]
This is how we're going to win? It could be worse? (Score:1)
We can't settle. Don't we want our OS to be the best? We won't get there by telling people things like "LILO is good enough! Leave it alone!"
Re:Another reason BSD has had superiority over Lin (Score:1)
He says "you've just got kernel envy cuz linux has a bigger kernel"
Welp its not that size that matters, its how you boot it:)
Re:Wazzup with that? (Score:1)
Replying to my own post.. (Score:1)
Glad to see you guys are following.. (Score:1)
Of course it can also read UFS, FAT, and do PXE booting..
Run faster!
Re:FreeBSD's boot0 does it too! (Score:1)
First, you have to patch and rebuild
Once you have these new versions, go ahead and install FreeBSD normally. But, before you reboot, goto the shell screen (ALT-F4) and copy your new versions of
Then, you need to update the FreeBSD slice with boot1 and boot2: disklabel -r -B ad0 (assuming this is drive C:).
Finally, you need to update boot0 to know about the LBA extensions (it calls this packet mode). Use boot0cfg -v -o packet ad0.
Good luck, and I *really* hope that this makes it into FreeBSD 4.1, because it's a pain in the butt for those of use installing into partitions over 8Gb...
-Dom
Hmmm (Score:1)
All I can say is, "it's about time!" I've had many a situation where LILO puked on the drives installed. This is great news!
Re:Will it allow other OSes to go above 1024? (Score:1)
Re:Will it allow other OSes to go above 1024? (Score:1)
Re:Will it allow other OSes to go above 1024? (Score:1)
I believe that it's called an MSDN subscription - it gives you updated versions of ALL their software
Re:What comes next? (Score:1)
Re:About time! (Score:1)
Re:... Slashmeat (Score:1)
Re:... Slashmeat (Score:1)
Re:WhaaasssUUUUp? (Score:1)
What game are *you* watching...?
Interesting... (Score:1)
On Alphas we have no such limitations on disks/boot loaders.
Also on Alpha Linux we can now use up to 2TB of RAM!
Now what we all need is EXT3 so we can have > 2GB filesystems and files!
Re:Interesting... (Score:1)
Re:3 Debian installs? (Score:1)
Re:Sure, NOOOOOOWWWW they do it.... (Score:1)
GRUB rrrrrrocks! (Score:1)
GRUB rocks totally and without any doubt - more flexible than LILO too. LILO looks so boring, too... GRUB has a colored full-screen boot menu (though colors are optional, of course =)
This was just one reason why I switched from LILO to GRUB - Dammit, I've never booted my home machine just to see that utterly coooooool boot menu! =)
Kernel size limitations? (Score:1)
developers can remove the size limitations that
LILO can load? Or is that a problem with the
Linux kernel design?
Re:Yes (Score:1)
Re:This still won't get me to use LILO. (Score:1)
--
Re:What comes next? (Score:1)
Steve
Re:YES! (Score:1)
Re:Other boot loaders? (Score:1)
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/ [gnu.org]
Re:3 Debian installs? (Score:1)
About the only thing dselect is needed for anymore is dealing with optional packages.
Re:What comes next? (Score:1)
mega-
giga-
tera-
peta-
exa-
Although peta- and exa- aren't legitimate SI prefixes.
Re:Yes (Score:1)
Wutever (Score:1)
Better?
---
Re:Will it allow other OSes to go above 1024? (Score:1)
I am a bit confused as to what you people are talking about with this 1024 cylinder limit. I just installed Mandrake Linux on an 8.6 gig drive with zero problems, and the drive states that it has something in the neighborhood of 15000 cylinders. Maybe I just got lucky and avoided it by making a 26 meg /boot partition.
Kick Ass (Score:1)
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Thank God! (Score:2)
This was the main reason I wouldn't adopt Linux as my OS of choice. With the price of terabyte hard drives falling, this is a must for Linux to make it to the desktop. Now all the Win9x-ers can move their pr0n and pirated mp3s to Linux...
P.S. "F" Dr. Dre
Re:Yes (Score:2)
Well, I suppose if you took an Orthodox Jew or Eastern Orthodox Catholic, and converted them to Reformed or Reconstructionist Judaism or Protestantism, you could be said to have unorthodoxed them...
Will it allow other OSes to go above 1024? (Score:2)
Re:great but LILO still needs...an enema (Score:2)
This requires that a boot loader partition usually about several KB to beinstalled in the system as the first partition. This boot partition contains the remainder of the boot loader. IE the main bootloader sits in the MBR and when called actually executes the MBR in the bootloader partition.
The bootloader residing in that partition can then be much more complex. IE Graphical/text menus et all.
The downside of this scheme is that you HAVE to install the bootloader partition first and then install any operating systems you want. Needless to say the OS/2 boot loader was wonderfull. (I still use it today to dual boot my Linux / Win98 box at home)
Ex-Nt-User
Translation (Score:2)
--
Re:Translation (Score:2)
Your tact... errrr... could use some improvment.
--
Re:LILO vs GERD err, i mean GRUB (Score:2)
I agree with other posters tho...GRUB is so nice there's really little reason to still use LILO.
Re:great but LILO still needs...an enema (Score:2)
Removed it how? (Score:2)
...BUT there's no Pr0n drivers for Linux (Score:2)
Microsoft is dumping 4l33t tools for making moviez, in order to build a base for a proprietary format. These kiddiez will download every Linux ISO out there and probably even TRADE them on IRC (lol!), but they'll never switch to Linux and lose their warez...
I like XFdisk (Score:2)
IMHO it looks much more intuitive than Lilo. You still have to install Lilo of course, in the Linux boot partition instead of the MBR. I am sure Lilo is more powerful but in most cases XFdisk would be much easier to user. XFdisk supports harddisks up to 1 Terabyte.
And yes, it is GPL-ed, should anyone ask.
Re:great but LILO still needs...an enema (Score:2)
we've got about half a dozen linux servers here and an equal number of linux desktops. we rarely reboot the servers (and with dual power supplies we've even kept them up while reconfiguring the power to the server room - think long extension cords) and the desktops always boot the same kernel.
from what you described it's like putting altitude gauges and flap controls in a car. sure, it looks neat, but why?
Why LILO needs an enema...or not.... (Score:2)
LILO still boots Linux off of MS-DOS style partitions because it's designed to boot OS's that only read those partitions. What good would it do to fdisk the disk in slices unless that's the only thing you're going to do with the disk. Windows, DOS, et al won't even recognize those disks as formatted.
If you want something better, you can look into System Commander. For what LILO does, it does it fast, well, and small. To tell me how much space System Commander takes up on your disk to be able to run bootloaders for all the OS's it does....
Re:this fixes LILO, what about the 32GB limit? (Score:2)
See Andries Brower's excellent Large Drive HOWTO for full details of this and other problems with larger disks - http://www.linuxdoc.org/.
Re:great but LILO still needs...an enema (Score:2)
and you don't have to reinstall it after each kernel upgrade.
--
Re:this fixes LILO, what about the 32GB limit? (Score:2)
there was a fix for >32gb drives folded into the 2.2.15pre series around 6 or 7.
there's also an issue with _lots_ of award bioses where they can't handle >32gb drives. award fixed this a while back, but many mobo oems haven't updated their bioses (like asus [asus.com]) - which is extremely frustrating. i have an asus p5a-b, and the only way i can use my 40gb maxtor is by having a 32gb drive to boot from, and not tell the bios about the maxtor. since linux doesn't use bios routines, it picks up the 40gb fine when it boots.
irritating nonetheless.
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Re:Other boot loaders? (Score:2)
Re:great but LILO still needs...an enema (Score:2)
On the other hand, NT has an interesting kludge to work around this situation. It allows you to load a disk driver (the NT
Of course, NT4's boot process has it's other annoyances, particularly on IDE drives (which MS seemed less keen on supporting than the Linux folks), not to mention that it doesn't try to support a good number of motherboards.
The real solution would be a OpenFirmware type system, instead of the continual series of "large disk" IDE kludges. Maybe, some day, the whole BIOS/Disk Geometry issue will be transparent to the user, but we may need something like IA64 to get there.
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Bootman! (Score:2)
See, I had Linux and BeOS on my computer, and it would just boot to a colorful menu that would select "BeOS" by default, but if I pressed an arrow key, it would switch to Linux. Then I'd just hit enter (or wait 5 seconds) and that was it.
Well, I had extra partition space and I decided to add Windoze as a third OS, because there were certain win32 programs I needed. So I install windows, which of course overwrites the MBR, so I can't boot into anything else now.
Simple - I just put the BeOS CD in, and run a program that loads BeOS straight out of windows. Then, from the Be terminal (a bash shell, or should I say BaSH shell?) I type "bootman". A window comes up listing every partition on every hard disk. I simply put a checkmark by every one that I want to be able to boot from, and give each a name as it will show up on the boot menu. I click "OK" and that's it. Bootman has taken back my MBR.
--
grappler
Re:Other boot loaders? (Score:2)
I even recommend this program to people over a warezed partition magic, it's very coool. And the author doesn't ever bother about _any_ license, plain freeware with source - how laissez-faire is that.
And you have the option to install it on it's own bootdisk, no need for msdos etc.
Sorry for my long text, but I think partion manager is the most overlooked program on the internet.
listing of bootloaders (Score:2)
Click here [google.com] to check it out.
Re:Dispelling Linux Myths (Score:2)
Fact: Most large DB systems prefer to have collections of the *smallest* capacity points (was 4GB, now usually 9GB), so that they can gain more from performace. More arms, less spindle time, more throughput. Large scale RAID arrays are far more likely to get a terabyte by RAIDing ~130 9GB drives than by RAIDing 30 40GB drives.
Single workstations (for MM) may have a large drive for storage, but that's not the server.
Ah, so if you deduct it, you get your (say 40%) of that cost back... so, you mean that (COST_OF_n_NT_LICENSES x
What, only 2 Tb? :-) (Score:2)
Of course, you can always have more than 1 disk. If you can't fit your boot loader onto a 2 Tb partition, you must be running an inferior OS
the AC
Re:LILO vs GURD err, i mean GRUB (Score:2)
It's still a bit hairy to install, but I beats me why anyone is still using Lilo. With grub, you get an editable list of boot images. If you messed up, the only thing you need is figure-out where a kernel is, and you've got tab-completion to find it. No messing around with boot floppies.
So, can anyone tell me why she's using Lilo for her distribution?
Jan
--
Jan Nieuwenhuizen | GNU LilyPond - The music typesetter
www.xs4all.nl/~jantien [xs4all.nl] | www.lilypond.org [lilypond.org]
Re:Other boot loaders? (Score:2)
Anyone have a link for GRUB ?
Re:Yes (Score:2)
Re:this fixes LILO, what about the 32GB limit? (Score:2)
Funny... (Score:2)
You can actually get away with putting the Linux kernel on a FAT partition as long as you take steps to insure that it doesn't get relocated when you defragment your drive. Heh. Easily fragmentable file system... you may as well be putting your data on the drive by hitting it with a rock...
FreeBSD's boot0 does it too! (Score:2)
In 4.0+ you can set up boot0 to use packet mode rather than the CHS mode to boot beyond 1024 cyl. Of course this IS hardware dependent and not all machines will behave properly.
Good news (Score:2)
Especially for new folks. A roomate I had tried to install linux - Red Hat wouldn't let him create a boot partition. Why? Because his windows (which he was going to dual boot into) was taking up space above the limit. At the time, I didn't even know about the limitation. We had to break out FIPS and get to work.
The book that came with his distro (not official Red Hat, I think it came with the 'for dummies' book) only brieftly mentioned the limitation, and did not mention workarounds. I don't know if my roomate even uses linux anymore, so traumatic did the install seem
Another friend was installing linux. I remember mentioning this problem and trying to explain for an hour and a half exactly what the problem was. My friend's not stupid, but the vaugaries of the hard drive are not for the weak of heart. She installed fine (she's got a linux-only system right now) but I was worried the warning would scare her off.
To make a long story short (too late) I look forward to not having to warn people about this anymore. I'll be able to reccommend Linux to many more people, now
Re:Other boot loaders? (Score:2)
Re:Other boot loaders? (Score:2)
Re:What comes next? (Score:2)
-12 pico- # Spanish pico, "a bit"
+12 tera- # Greek teras, "monster"
-15 femto- # Danish-Norweg. femten, "fifteen"
+15 peta- # Greek pente, "five"
-18 atto- # Danish-Norweg. atten, "eighteen"
+18 exa- # Greek hex, "six"
-21 zopto- # Latin septem, "seven"
+21 zetta- # Latin septem, "seven"
-24 yocto- # Greek or Latin octo, "eight"
+24 otta- # Greek or Latin octo, "eight"
Re:Yes (Score:2)
At last! (Score:2)
The fix for 1024cyl has been around for years! (Score:2)
---
LILO vs GURD err, i mean GRUB (Score:2)
According to the grub page, grub isn't publicly available. Only alphas are--can an alpha bootloader really be better than LILO? (which is more established) Is there any meat to this guys comment?
Sure, NOOOOOOWWWW they do it.... (Score:2)
3 Days after I get it working ... THEY RELEASE A VERSION OF LILO THAT DOESN'T HAVE THE 1024 CYLINDER LIMIT!!!!!!!!
ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!
DaiTengu
--------
Damage Inc. BBS
Re:3 Debian installs? (Score:3)
He's ok now, except any time someone says "dselect", he starts screaming and sobbing uncontrollably.
It's about time! (Score:3)
I've had to explain the 1024 cylinder limitation to numerous newbies before, and it does nothing but puzzle them. Once distributions get the new LILO, that's a thing of the past. Maybe it's not too late for Debian to fold this into potato. Fingers crossed...
Here's a question for boot loader gurus: Do GRUB and other boot loaders have the 1024 cylinder limit problem as well?
Re:Will it allow other OSes to go above 1024? (Score:3)
It's interesting that they claim an NT boot partition can be 7.8GB. I've never achieved more than 4GB - the setup program crapped out for anymore. On my 13GB drive I had to delete all my other partitions otherwise the NT setup program crapped out with a strange error number - I re-created the partitions afterwards without any data loss (obviously I didn't do any partitioning in the NT setup prog). For my work I need four versions of Windows installed... and I currently only have two drives. This new LILO will allow me to have 4 4GB partitions for each of the windows installations (I don't let them put NTLDR etc on other installation's partitions), and still have Linux without the small boot partition I currently have, which of course uses up one of my four primary partition entries.
Re:Will it allow other OSes to go above 1024? (Score:3)
It's a combination of the two. To put it simply, the loader needs to be able to find the OS, and the OS needs to find itself. The way LILO loads Linux is different from the way it loads other operating systems, so the precise limitations aren't identical.
That said, you'll probably run into problems installing NT on such a large drive if it's IDE, but there are workarounds. See: Q197667 - Installing Windows NT on a Large IDE Hard Disk [microsoft.com]. Two things to note:
SP4 fixes his problem, but of course you can't install SP's until after you install NT. The Installation will fail, so normally you'd be screwed. MS has worked out a hack (in the linked article) that works around this problem by installing SP4's updated Atapi.sys. Also note:
Why do I know this crap? I was installing NT4 on my Dad's new 20GB HD a few months ago. It took me three days to figure out why neither NT 4.0 or Windows 95 would install. I actually thought the HD was damaged at first, but Linux (Mandrake 6.0) installed with no problems. (He uses AutoCAD all day, so he wanted NT...)
Re:Removed it how? (Score:3)
"The 1024-cylinder limit has been removed by a patch that uses the EDD bios extensions and supports up to 2 TB disks."
so it's just a matter of supporting a BIOS extension to read >1024 cyl with real-mode bios calls.
--
IT'S A JOKE (Score:3)
-JD, certified geek [geeky.org]
I got this email from Rob by mistake- It's for you (Score:3)
Now that you have brought it to our attention, we realize the enormity of our gaffe.
Please accept our bowing and scraping as we endevor to correct our appaling mistake. In future we will post no stories without consulting you for approval.
No, that's not enough. We will give you all creative control of slashdot since we are clearly incapable of the intelect needed to properly run this, or any other, site.
Moderators, please moderate this post down as it is unworthy of being seen.
We now go to disembowel ourselves in shame.
With Abject Regret,
The Management.
Big deal (Score:4)
About time! (Score:4)
(On the other hand, I still think Shoestring was better. :)
For those wanting alternative loaders, take a look at these, to see if they'll do what you want. (I can't remember the URLs, but they should all be on Freshmeat.)
Re:great but LILO still needs...an enema (Score:4)
NetBSD already has this support for quite a while (Score:4)
Re:... Slashmeat (Score:5)
Fixing this problem _is_ big news, as far as I'm concerned, and I would have missed it on Freshmeat.
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Re:great but LILO still needs...an enema (Score:5)
Hey, it could be worse! You know you've been around Linux for too long when you can remember having to boot off floppy disks because there was no hard disk boot loader available.
One thing to remember about boot loaders is that their only purpose is to help the disk boot. You don't want a large application sitting here or you slow your system boot time down even more. I could be wrong here, but I believe that LILO has to fit completely in the MBR. This severly constrains how much can be put into it.
If something more is really needed, you would have to have a first stage loader like LILO boot a 2nd stage loader with all the bells and whistles. The problem this is that you have to get the 2nd stage loader out of the way for the kernel to come into memory.
Ask yourself the question, is this really necessary? Machine boots, I'm happy. Put your time in configuration tools to help with setting up LILO in the first place
Wazzup with that? (Score:5)
It probably boots more systems on this planet than the old DOS MBR did though its useful lifetime, and it sure seems stable enough. . .
-Omar
Dispelling Linux Myths (Score:5)
Fact: Linux makes no sense as a server. Whereas NT supports up to 480 gazillion petabytes of disk storage, the largest disks Linux supports are only 27 terabytes. This limitation is especially frustrating for e-commerce companies and multimedia developers, for whom large amounts of hard drive are a requirement.
Myth: Linux has a lower TCO
Fact: If you consider that buying NT licenses for business use is tax-deductible, as are all those tech support calls, NT actually has a lower TCO than Linux! How are you going to expense software that doesn't cost anything? Eh?!?
great but LILO still needs...an enema (Score:5)
LILO has been due for replacement for a looong time, and it should probably take the current reliance on the awful MS-DOS fdisk style partitioning scheme with it (for a slice scheme like the BSD and many others use, or better still a completely flexible named-partition design like the (gasp) Mac has had for years). Really, these are areas that have been addressed by other Unices for years, including the free ones.
Re:... Slashmeat (Score:5)
Like hell. Every day!? Lessee, the last time I saw a LILO prompt was oh what the heck, 8 months ago? I had to bring the system down because of a hurricane.
Now if LILO loaded NT, well then everyone would see it just about every day... {cackle}
Re:Cool (Score:5)
Older methods to get around this problem was to put a boot partition with the kernel image on a separate partition (earlier) on the disk to satisfy LILO. But now that shouldn't be necessary (unless you've got 27+ TB disks!)
Re:this fixes LILO, what about the 32GB limit? (Score:5)
To be totally exact, the kernel and related boot file had to be under the 1024th cyl. However, it's usually a good idea to make sure the whole partition is under the limit, as otherwise the OS might allocate the blocks for your next kernel upgrade right at the end of the partition, in which case you're fscked.
Is there a different problem with drives over 32Gig?
This sounds like a pure kernel problem. The problem with LILO is brain-dead BIOSes (well it's not totally their fault, the original BIOS interface assumed that things never got very big, like over ~800 Meg). It would be very interesting if some MB OEM created a new BIOS interface that can handle reasonably sized disks (say using an unsigned 64 bit int for handling addresses, with addressing single bytes thats 16777216 terabytes).
Re:It's about time! (Score:5)