I have been experimenting with the mbr package. (mbr is a dependency for the lilo package; so if you have lilo installed you have mbr package installed too.) I usually install lilo to the master boot record (boot=/dev/hda specified in /etc/lilo.conf). But in certain situations it is advantageous to install lilo to the boot sector of a primary partition (boot=/dev/hda1) and install a DOS-like master boot record program in the master boot record, making the partition containing the lilo boot loader the active partition.
For example, on some of our Dell servers one can bring up a "boot menu" via the BIOS setup program by pressing F12 during the POST process. (This is during POST and before the actual boot process.) Upon completion of POST, the "BIOS boot menu" (not to be confused with the boot menu of any boot loader) will be displayed. One of the choices in this BIOS boot menu is "Boot to Utility Partition", or something like that. This boots a maintenance partition containing some hardware testing programs supplied by Dell. This works fine if the master boot record is a standard DOS/Windows-style master boot record, but does not work with Linux-style boot loaders, such as grub or lilo. Of course, I can always add the maintenance partition to the lilo boot menu, but our non-Linux-proficient technicians aren't used to this. I want a Linux box to look just like a Windows box as viewed by a service technician. I could use DOS or Windows to install its master boot record program with "fdisk /mbr" or fixmbr, or whatever, depending on the release of DOS or Windows, and set the Linux partition active, and that works. But Microsoft may claim that this means that our box requires a license for DOS or Windows. I'd hate to burn a Windows license just to get its master boot record installed, when that's all I'm using. It would seem that the mbr package in Debian GNU/Linux is just the ticket for this sort of problem. I have run the "install-mbr" program, and it works just as expected. There is just one little nit left that I would like to take care of. lilo advertises itself by printing out "LILO" on the screen prior to booting the Linux kernel. That's fine. I want to see that. mbr also advertises itself by printing out "MBR" on the screen when it boots. So what I see at boot time is something like this: MBR LILO 22.8 Loading Linux BIOS data check successful and then the Linux kernel boot messages. That's tolerable, but I'd like that "MBR" advertisement to be eliminated. I read the man page for install-mbr, and I can see how to eliminate the boot prompt, which I have done, but I couldn't find a way to suppress the MBR advertisement. The DOS/Windows mbr program is totally silent, a trick that I would like to teach this program. Does anyone know of a way to accomplish this? Or is this just something I have to live with? -- .''`. Stephen Powell <zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1287129746.1654901270657281956.javamail.r...@md01.wow.synacor.com
