[CLUE-Admin] KISS presentations?

[Lynn Danielson]

rjohnston at techangle.com wrote:
> I'm not sure that there's a 1/2 hour to say about lilo - but I'll look. 
 > If not - or if everyone is already familiar enough with it - we can try
 > a Q&A.

The basics of lilo could could easily take fifteen minutes.  That lilo
is a loaded in two parts, that it relies on a map file (not System.map)
and chain loaders to boot operating systems other than Linux.  How the
LILO boot prompt can be used to diagnose problems and how "linear" and
other lilo.conf options can be used to fix some of these problems.  Or
how lilo saves the boot record every time it's run and how the -u can
uninstall lilo by restoring an old boot sector (an option to DOS's
fdisk /mbr).  The depth in which you chose to cover lilo.conf options
could easily flesh out a lilo talk.

Lilo configuration offers a number options beyond the basic global and
stanza parameters typically found in lilo.conf, most of these are
ignored and possibly unknown by many Linux users.  A bit of history
about the lba32 option and how lilo no longer restricts the kernel to
be within the first 1024 blocks of the the hard drive might be worth
mentioning.  How to boot an alternate OS with LILO perhaps.  How
"password" and  "restricted" can be set for additional console security.
Using the append option to pass parameters to the kernel for hardware
configuration, such as old SCSI interfaces or multiple ethernet cards.
Or using initrd to boot from scsi drives.  How to set console VGA modes
was a question asked recently on CLUE-Tech.  I'd personally like to know
more about how /boot/boot.b works to provide graphical lilo displays.
And for all the positive talk I heard about grub lately, I'd like to
know what advantages, if any, lilo has to offer.  Not that I'm anxious
to do this presentation myself, but I think that there's plenty of
material for a KISS session.

Lynn