On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 08:44:17PM -0500, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Jan 2015 20:31:07 -0500
> Hendrik Boom <hendrik@???> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 12:59:51PM -0500, Neo Futur wrote:
> > > I completely agree with most of the comments above about grub2.
> > > I manage dedicated server and build my own grsec kernel, so I often
> > > have to use the bootloader, so many times I couldnt get it to boot
> > > with grub2 after hours trying and as soon as I tried with lilo or
> > > grub-legacy it worked immediately my kernel was not at fault but
> > > some obscure grub2 problem.
> > >
> > > So I upvote this idea of having devuan coming with a different
> > > default bootloader, wether it is grub1 or lilo ( or whatever is
> > > simple enough to be used by an average human, meaning not grub2 )
> >
> > Lilo is easy to use, its configuration files are somewhat
> > comprehensible, but it dooes take a while befre you understand
> > what's what, because the interaction between syntax and semantics
> > isn't that well documented (at least, it wsan't long ago when I still
> > needed to read it).
> >
> > THe big problem with lilo is that at the time of running the lilo
> > command, it figures out exactly where the boot-time files are and
> > sets up a table to be used at boot time. If those files are moved on
> > disk for any reason, even if they're in the same logical location i
> > the file system, it won't boot.
> >
> > Such file movement cab happen when one upgrades the kernel to a new
> > version that still has the same file name. Of course, when you
> > upgrade the kernel, dpkg will cause lilo to be rerun.. But if
> > something goe wrong with that, you could be doomed.
>
> Not necessarily doomed. Bust back in with System Rescue CD or Super
> Grub Disk, chroot yourself into a replica of the system's file
> hierarchy, repair the LILO file, and rerun lilo.

Perhaps detailed instructions for doing this should be in the
documentation for devuan -- somewhere where the home user is likely to
see it.

-- hendrik