[NTLUG:Discuss] lilo question

[ddaupert@csc.com]

I am trying to boot into either suse 7.2 or mandrake 8 on my machine. I had
installed suse
7 originally, then partitioned my hd to load Mandrake, which I was
successful in doing, but
in the process mandrake overwrote the MBR with its lilo.conf, so I could
only boot into
Mandrake. Later, I upgraded suse, and it overwrote MBR. (I gotta learn how
to stop that :-)
I'm trying to learn to set up lilo.conf to let me boot into either distro,
but so far, mandrake
won't boot up. I list three copies of lilo.conf below, my attempted hack
first, then the
separate lilo.conf's the distro installs wrote; then output from fdisk.
Mandrake and Suse
both have things in their respective global sections that do not appear in
the other's; for
example, mandrake has the line: lba32. Also, suse's boot in in /dev/hda1
and mandrake's
stuff is in /dev/hda2. I'm a little confused about what things you can put
in global vs the individual
sections. Can I put boot = /dev/hda2 in mandrake's little area? as well as
the lba32 declaration? Or do I need to but both suse and mandrake
boot files in the same /boot directory?

Thanks for your guru assistance.

/dennis

###################################
This is my current hack attempt lilo.conf which successfully launches suse,
but doesn't boot Mandrake:

boot = /dev/hda1
vga  = 771
read-only
menu-scheme = Wg:kw:Wg:Wg
prompt
timeout   = 80
message   = /boot/message

  image  = /boot/vmlinuz
  label  = linux
  root   = /dev/hda6
  initrd = /boot/initrd

  image  = /boot/vmlinuz.suse
  label  = suse
  root   = /dev/hda6
  initrd = /boot/initrd.suse
  optional

  image  = /boot/memtest.bin
  label  = memtest86

# I copied this from Mandrake's lilo.conf
  image=/boot/vmlinuz
  label=linux-mandrake
  root=/dev/hda7
  append=" quiet"
  read-only

#############################################
This is Mandrake's lilo.conf; once upon a time it used to boot up
mandrake before I upgraded suse.

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=linux-mandrake
keytable=/boot/us.klt
lba32
prompt
timeout=100
message=/boot/message-graphic
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
     label=linux-mandrake
     root=/dev/hda7
     append=" quiet"
     vga=788
     read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
     label=linux-nonfb
     root=/dev/hda7
     read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
     label=failsafe
     root=/dev/hda7
     append=" failsafe"
     read-only
other=/dev/fd0
     label=floppy
     unsafe

################################################
And this is suse's lilo.conf written by suse 7.2 upgrade.

# LILO configuration file
# Start LILO global Section
# If you want to prevent console users to boot with init=/bin/bash,
#  restrict usage of boot params by setting a passwd and using the option
#  restricted.
#password=bootpwd
#restricted
append="vga=0x0301"
boot=/dev/hda
#compact       # faster, but won't work on all systems.
vga = normal    # force sane state
read-only
menu-scheme = Wg:kw:Wg:Wg
lba32
prompt
timeout   = 80
message   = /boot/message
# End LILO global Section
#
image = /boot/vmlinuz
  initrd = /boot/initrd   # automatically added by patch_lilo_conf
  root = /dev/hda6
  label = linux


########################
This is output from fdisk to show my hd map, plus I added the last column

root at tesla:/home/dennis > fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 3720 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1         3     24066   83  Linux         SuSE /boot
/dev/hda2             4         6     24097+  83  Linux         Mandrake
/boot
/dev/hda3             7      3720  29832705   85  Linux extended
/dev/hda5             7        23    136521   82  Linux swap    SuSE
/dev/hda6            24      1848  14659281   83  Linux         SuSE
/dev/hda7          1849      1889    329301   83  Linux         Mandrake
/root
/dev/hda8          1890      1916    216846   82  Linux swap    Mandrake
/dev/hda9          1917      3063   9213246   83  Linux         Mandrake
/dev/hda10         3064      3152    714861   83  Linux         Mandrake
/var
/dev/hda11         3153      3720   4562428+  83  Linux         mandrake
/home

/etc/fstab from SuSE 1:

/dev/hda5       swap    swap    defaults 0 0
/dev/hda6       /       reiserfs        defaults 1 1
/dev/hda1       /boot   ext2    defaults 1 2
/dev/hdc        /media/cdrom    auto    ro,noauto,user,exec 0 0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy   auto    noauto,user 0 0
none    /proc   proc    defaults 0 0