1 Topic by comet.berkeley (edited by comet.berkeley 2013-03-24 18:11:20)

  • comet.berkeley
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Topic: [Solved] Success running Live HD using LILO

Hello  I'm new to the forums and an old Slackware user.

I read the online documentation for GParted Live on Hard Disk and was able to
translate it from Grub into LILO.

Here are my notes to myself for doing it next time...

  1. Download the gparted-live...zip file from:
       http://gparted.org/download.php

  2. Create an LBA FAT32 partition of 256MiB.

       Lets call it /dev/sda2 for this example.

       If you don't have GParted, use fdisk and make the partition type "c".

       And again if you don't have GParted make a dos filesystem on the partition:

       mkdosfs /dev/sda2

  3. Create directory /a2 and mount the partition there:

       mkdir /a2
       mount -t vfat /dev/sda2 /a2

  4. Unzip the GParted download file into the /a2 directory:

       cd     /a2
       unzip   gparted-live...zip

  5. Edit the /etc/lilo.conf file:

    # GParted bootable partition config begins
    image = /a2/live/vmlinuz
      root = /dev/sda2
      label  = gparted
      append = "boot=live config union=aufs noswap noprompt ip=frommedia live-media-path=/live bootfrom=/dev/sda2 toram=filesystem.squashfs"
      vga=788
      initrd = /a2/live/initrd.img
    # GParted bootable partition config ends

  6. run lilo:
       lilo

“When you see a good move, look for a better one”
― Emanuel Lasker

2 Reply by comet.berkeley (edited by comet.berkeley 2013-03-24 18:06:24)

  • comet.berkeley
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Re: [Solved] Success running Live HD using LILO

Grub users may want to take note of the  bootfrom=/dev/sda2 parameter.

In the GParted Live on Hard Disk documentation this parameter is specified
with hd instead of sd as bootfrom=/dev/hda4

Older Linux kernels with the old IDE code will probably want to use hd. 

Newer kernels and SATA systems will probably want to use sd.

I am using gparted-live-0.15.0-1-amd64.zip

“When you see a good move, look for a better one”
― Emanuel Lasker

3 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [Solved] Success running Live HD using LILO

Thank you comet.berkeley for this detailed information.  This should help others using LILO.  I will look into to adding this to the GParted web site as well.

4 Reply by comet.berkeley

  • comet.berkeley
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Re: [Solved] Success running Live HD using LILO

gedakc wrote:

Thank you comet.berkeley for this detailed information.  This should help others using LILO.  I will look into to adding this to the GParted web site as well.

No problem. I like the GParted utility and use it  to resize partitions.  The graphical interface is much more fool proof than the traditional command line tools.

Since I first posted, I discovered that there is no need for a separate partition in which to put the GParted Live files as a simple directory will do fine.

I also found that I can boot the memtest86+ utility very easily as well.

Here are newer instructions for using GParted Live on an existing Linux system that uses LILO:

  1. Download the gparted-live...zip file from:
       http://gparted.org/download.php

       In this case I downloaded gparted-live-0.15.0-1-amd64.zip

  2. Create a /gparted-live directory:

       mkdir /gparted-live

  3. Unzip the gparted download file into the /gparted-live directory:

       cd     /gparted-live
       unzip   gparted-live...zip

  4. Edit the /etc/lilo.conf file and add a section for gparted.
       Lets assume that the /gparted-live directory resides on the /dev/sda4 partition.

    # GParted bootable partition config begins
    image = /gparted-live/live/vmlinuz
      root = /dev/sda4  # make sure this matches the bootfrom= below ...
      label  = gparted
      append = "boot=live config union=aufs noswap noprompt ip=frommedia live-media-path=/gparted-live/live bootfrom=/dev/sda4 toram=filesystem.squashfs"
      vga=788
      initrd = /gparted-live/live/initrd.img
    # GParted bootable partition config ends

  5. Optionally add a section for memtest86+

    # memtest86+ bootable partition config begins
    image = /gparted-live/live/memtest
      label = memtest
    # memtest86+ bootable partition config ends

  6. run lilo:
       lilo

“When you see a good move, look for a better one”
― Emanuel Lasker

5 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [Solved] Success running Live HD using LILO

Thank you comet.berkeley for this updated information.  I have this on my radar for adding to the GParted web site as well when I get a chance.

Also we're glad to hear that GParted is working well for you.  :-)

6 Reply by gedakc

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Re: [Solved] Success running Live HD using LILO

These LILO instructions have been added to the GParted Live on Hard Disk page.

If I have made any mistakes, or you have further suggestions for improvement, then please let me know.

Thanks again comet.berkeley for these instructions.

7 Reply by comet.berkeley

  • comet.berkeley
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Re: [Solved] Success running Live HD using LILO

As there seem to be some problems with the current stable release of GParted 0.15

http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=16833

the LILO instructions are good for the previous stable level of GParted-0.14.1-6 too.

“When you see a good move, look for a better one”
― Emanuel Lasker