On 06/18/2013 11:35 AM, Gary Dale wrote:
On 18/06/13 10:35 AM, Lars Noodén wrote:
On 06/18/2013 05:03 PM, Dirk wrote:
you are clearly talking out of your ass... a boot loader doesn't need
features other than loading the kernel...
what crucial work do you do with the features of grub? spreadsheets?
presentations? project managing? or do you play it like a text
adventure
figuring out what the grub rescue console actually does?
*primitive is the best thing about lilo*... if you don't realize that
then you don't care if a part as stupid as the boot loader doesn't
work... because you have alternatives to linux..
Having just involuntarily bumped into the grub rescue console, I can say
that LILO was much easier to work with and to figure out. In the case
of grub I eventually had to give up and nuke the MBR from the rescue
mode of the installation CD. grub is complex, grub2 more so.
Regards,
/Lars
When GRUB came out, it's best feature was that you didn't need to
update it every time you installed a new kernel - something that LILO
required. With GRUB2, we're back to needing to update the boot loader
when the kernel changes.
This is not true at all. No need to reinstall GRUB at any point and in
many distributions who simply install a kernel under a single name (In
arch, for example, kernel image filenames aren't versioned. So upgrading
a kernel all you have to do is reboot to use the new kernel.), the
configuration needs no updating either. It's only on systems like DEBIAN
which does things in package management in overly verbose and
complicated ways that GRUB has to be reconfigured just to use a new
kernel. In this case it's less on GRUB and how the distribution installs
its kernel and initramfs images.
Yes, I know that Debian does this so you can fall back on an older
kernel if you need, but that's a separate issue. I'm just pointing out
the downside of that is GRUB will have to be informed every time the
kernel is upgraded.
The other features you need in a boot loader is that it works on
everything, and you need it to fail gracefully into a mode where you
can fix the problems that are preventing the system from booting.
GRUB 2 does this... but its recovery console is next to unusable. It's
better to use a LiveCD or something, chroot onto your installed system,
and reinstall/reconfigure grub. Last I heard LILO didn't even have much
in the way of recovery tools.
Unfortunately, there is also now the UEFI problem to consider. Now
boot loaders have to contend with security checks enforced by the
hardware.
Thanks to Microsoft's Windows 8 "sticker standard" SecureBoot can be
turned off on all Windows8-based x86 systems that have it. If you don't
want to contend with it, then turn it off. Bootloaders don't have to
contend with security at all unless you don't know how to turn off
SecureBoot.
Primitive no longer cuts it. What you need is a boot loader that can
handle all the crap that gets thrown at it. The boot loader that does
it best wins.
On UEFI systems, use rEFInd (Even better: Use rEFInd to load the kernel
directly to boot itself.). On MBR systems GRUB still does it better than
LILO.
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