[GRLUG] Active Partitions

[Justin Denick]

On Dec 5, 2007 11:50 AM, Greg Folkert <greg at gregfolkert.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2007-12-05 at 10:50 -0500, Justin Denick wrote:
> > On Dec 5, 2007 10:26 AM, Greg Folkert <greg at gregfolkert.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 14:50 -0500, Justin Denick wrote:
> > > [snip]
> > > > FWIW, I did not try GRUB. Grub is garbage.
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > So, exactly why do you think this?
> > >
> > > I have a similar opinion of all boot loaders, not just GRUB, but LILO,
> > > MILO, SILO and a boot loader from Microsoft, IBM's boot loaders for OS2
> > > and such. This along with other boot managers that are out there. They
> > > all SUCK.
> > >
> > > Care to enlighten me?
> >
> > LILO has been my bootloader since I began using linux. I am a creature of habit.
> > I used GRUB once, it failed me, so I have not gone back.
> > Since I don't dual boot anything, and I only keep one kernel, booting
> > is just a means
> > to an end. I suppose if I had began using GRUB, and LILO had failed
> > me, I would think
> > differently.
>
> I started with something else, I can't remember what it was called.
>
> Perhaps it was LILO, but it wasn't called that when SLS Linux first came
> out.
>
> > > FWIW, LILO needs to know WHERE EXACTLY (C,H,S) the booting image/kernel
> > > is in order to load it. *THAT* is why you have to "re-run" LILO every
> > > time you install a new kernel.
> > Not a big deal, since running make install after compiling your kernel
> > now prompts you.
> > I'm not sure when that started, I think it happened after 2.6.10 or 2.6.12.
>
> Hmmm, didn't know that.
>
> Until recently (few years) LILO couldn't go past the 1GB boundary on
> disk *RELIABLY*. Sure it has been able to for a long time, but you had
> to ensure you really has the *right* version of LILO.
>
> > > Also, GRUB doesn't need to know exactly where the booting image is, but
> > > it does have to be able to *read* the file-system upon which the booting
> > > kernel/image, or chain-load it from things like Windows or OS2.
> > >
> > > Personally, I use GRUB only because it is more reliable for remote
> > > machines, compared to LILO.
> >
> > A piece of software that forgives operator error, should not be deemed more
> > reliable than one that doesn't.
>
> Nope, we are talking about NOT operator error, but DISTRO PROVIDER
> ERROR. Specifically RedHat Enterprise Linux v3 update 9 and v4 update 5.
>
> These machines had been upgraded since forever. Reboots are always
> fraught with problems when using LILO. Even when properly setup, there
> is a good chance that LILO will not properly detect the right setup.
>
> We are talking machines with 30+ disks and 2-5 drive controllers, about
> 8 kernels (smp and up and revisions if problems occur with the new
> kernel) installed at any one time.
>
> One feature GRUB has is command line booting, in other words, even *IF*
> someone blows away the menu.lst, you can still boot the machine FROM the
> GRUB prompt, assuming you know how to do this.
>
> LILO failure == booting a recovery disk and hopefully having the
> recovery disk evaluate the numerous disk in the same order so that LILO
> writes the (apparent) MBR properly.
>
> > > Of all the machines I've had not reboot properly, *recently*, all have
> > > been LILO.
> >
> > Was it LILO's fault?
>
> Actually it was. 30+ disks, some as mirrors of others (especially the
> booting partition) causes LILO to get confused occasionally. It works
> 99% of the time, but fails 1%. It fails at the least opportune time, as
> has been my luck. I still have about 70% of legacy machines using LILO,
> so don't think I am "fringe" case.
>
>         I have 2 new machines using LILO, as we have a requirement to
>         use XFS only on any filesystems... its a "third party" app that
>         the vendor has "strict requirements"... and they have installed
>         new kernels and lotsa other stuff rebooted that machine... and
>         have had to pay to have someone "work" on the machine to get it
>         to boot. And yes, its been operator error in this case.
>
>         FYI on that, they recently went from supporting ONLY Solaris 9
>         on SPARC hardware, to RHEL v4 update 3 setup this way. These
>         machines are now, 2 quad core processors, blahblahblah machine
>         with 3.5GB of memory (running ia32 kernels). I am tempted to
>         migrate them to VMs, as the machines *NEVER* see any load
>         average above 0.2. I'll bet I could do it without them even
>         knowing. Until its is too late for them.
>
> FWIW, GRUB never needs to be re-run. You just change the config file. If
> you make a mistake in that... you have the "edit" function available to
> fix the problem (at boot) OR you can go into command line and manually
> load the kernel yourself.

I do like this feature of GRUB. My fix has always been, reboot with a
LiveCD, chroot, and fix the issue. For me this is more convenient than
learning GRUB's CLI.

>
> So, given that we are all prone to mistakes in any case, which one would
> you use, based on using Linux for your CORE business model and
> application serving?

I will continue to use LILO, until it has costs money. I use the word
"free" to emphasize *nix qualities a lot, but I am not so stubborn as
to stick with a dog that won't hunt.

if (FOSS > $0.00)
  grep lightbulb /dev/brain
fi

Thanks a lot for all of the feed back

>
>
> > > Same machines, once GRUB was installed and setup properly (being trivial
> > > to do), have not had a a single problem rebooting since.
>
> --
> Greg Folkert <greg at gregfolkert.net>
>
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