Red Hat Linux 7 Unleashed

By William Ball

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Lead Authors
  • About the Contributing Authors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • I. Red Hat Linux Installation and User Services
  • Chapter 1. Introduction to Red Hat Linux
  • Chapter 2. Installation of Your Red Hat System
  • Chapter 3. LILO and Other Boot Managers
    • Choosing and Installing a Boot Manager
    • Installing and Configuring LILO
    • How to Uninstall LILO
    • Troubleshooting LILO
    • Using LOADLIN.EXE to Boot Linux
    • Installing and Using BootMagic
    • Summary
  • Chapter 4. Configuring the X Window System, Version 11
  • Chapter 5. Window Managers
  • Chapter 6. Connecting to the Internet
  • Chapter 7. IRC, ICQ, and Chat Clients
  • Chapter 8. Using Multimedia and Graphics Clients
  • II. Configuring Services
  • Chapter 9. System Startup and Shutdown
  • Chapter 10. SMTP and Protocols
  • Chapter 11. FTP
  • Chapter 12. Apache Server
  • Chapter 13. Internet News
  • Chapter 14. Domain Name Service and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
  • Chapter 15. NIS: Network Information Service
  • Chapter 16. NFS: Network Filesystem
  • Chapter 17. Samba
  • III. System Administration and Management
  • Chapter 18. Linux Filesystems, Disks, and Other Devices
  • Chapter 19. Printing with Linux
  • Chapter 20. TCP/IP Network Management
  • Chapter 21. Linux System Administration
  • Chapter 22. Backup and Restore
  • Chapter 23. System Security
  • IV. Red Hat Development and Productivity
  • Chapter 24. Linux C/C++ Programming Tools
  • Chapter 25. Shell Scripting
  • Chapter 26. Automating Tasks
  • Chapter 27. Configuring and Building Kernels
  • Chapter 28. Emulators, Tools, and Window Clients
  • V. Appendixes
  • A. The Linux Documentation Project
  • B. Top Linux Commands and Utilities
  • C. The GNU General Public License
  • D. Red Hat Linux RPM Package Listings

Troubleshooting LILO

You shouldn't have any problems with LILO, but if you do, you'll get one of 70 different warnings or error messages. They're not all listed here, but Table 3.2 lists six of the most probable LILO: prompt or initial errors.

Table 3.2. LILO: Prompt Errors

Disk error codes can indicate problems such as an open floppy door, a drive timeout, a controller error, a media problem, a BIOS error, or even transient read problems (which can be overcome by rebooting). Overall, some common problems with LILO include

• Not rerunning /sbin/lilo following a kernel change
• Incorrect use of /sbin/lilo in creating a new boot map
• Installing and booting Linux from a very large (2GB+) partition
• Installing another operating system (such as Windows 95, which overwrites the MBR) after installing Linux and LILO
• Errors in /etc/lilo.conf after manual edits
• A corrupted MBR
• Installation of LILO in a Linux swap partition (which should be impossible)
• A missing Linux kernel image (error in /etc/lilo.conf)
• Installing Linux on and booting from a DOS partition and then defragmenting the DOS partition
• Passing incorrect kernel messages at the LILO: prompt

If you run into trouble, definitely peruse Almesberger's readme file, found under the /usr/share/doc/lilo directory. Take his advice: Don't panic! With a little forethought, detection, and perseverance, you should be able to avoid or overcome problems.

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