[vox-tech] Gentoo - Backup Sys Config Files & Grub vs LILO

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Edward Elliott (ed_elliott@email.com):

> 2) On my current Gentoo system I chose Grub as the boot loader, was that a
> reasonable choice?

Sure, there's nothing wrong with GRUB.

> Is there any reason to prefer LILO over Grub?

1)  Although GRUB's second-stage bootloader's ability to read the
semantics of the /boot filesystem can be seen as an advantage, from some
perspectives the _requirement_ that it be able to read the /boot
filesystem might be seen as a disadvantage.

  1a) It means that /boot cannot be on Your Favourite Exotic Filesystem 
  unless the ability to parse it happens to be built into the GRUB 
  second-stage loader.

  1b) It means that minor /boot filesystem damage might prevent booting,
  a situation where LILO's loader modules wouldn't notice because they
  don't use filesystem parsing.  (Only the /sbin/lilo map installer does.)

2)  You happen to already be familiar with LILO and so don't get
traumatised by silly and easily avoided new-user pitfalls[1], and LILO
isn't broken, so you keep using it.

[1] See "Zen of LILO" on http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Kernel .

-- 
Cheers,        "A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line, today.  The results
Rick Moen       blacked out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon."
rick@linuxmafia.com                                  -- Steel City News