LILO

From ArchWiki

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The LInux LOader, or LILO for short, is a legacy multi-boot loader for Linux systems. In spite of being the standard choice over the course of several years, it has been slowly phased out thanks to the advent of GRUB, an alternative boot loader offering easier configuration and less chances of rendering systems unbootable.

Installation

LILO can be installed during system installation by selecting lilo during package selection. It can be installed after the fact with:

# pacman -S lilo

Configuration

LILO is configured by editing the /etc/lilo.conf file and running lilo afterwards to apply the new configuration. If choosing LILO during the Arch Linux installation process, the configuration file should have been already performed.

As a reminder, consider that LILO needs to be run after every kernel upgrade, otherwise the system is likely to be rendered unbootable.

More help on setting up LILO can be found in the LILO-mini-HOWTO.

Sample setup

A typical LILO setup:

#
# /etc/lilo.conf
#

boot=/dev/hda
# This line often fixes L40 errors on bootup
# disk=/dev/hda bios=0x80

default=Arch
timeout=100
lba32
prompt
compact

image=/boot/vmlinuz26
        label=Arch
	append="devfs=nomount"
	vga=788
        root=/dev/hda2
        read-only

image=/boot/vmlinuz26
        label=ArchRescue
        root=/dev/hda8
        read-only

other=/dev/hda1
        label=Windows

# End of file

Resources

• List of kernel parameters that can be used at boot time
• List of kernel paramaters with further explanation and grouped by like options ('Kernel Boot Command-Line Parameter Reference', Linux Kernel In A Nutshell)