GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Lilo

Lilo can be installed into the Master Boot Record (MBR) or as the first part of some other disk partition. That is, you have the choice of the BIOS starting up lilo or some other program in your MBR. The MBR program that cames with Debian is installed when you run the command install-mbr. To overwrite the part of lilo that is installed on the MBR you simply install something else in the MBR!

When lilo overwrites the MBR it keeps a copy of the old MBR in case you find you need to restore it for any reason.

Large Disks

On Velox (36.52) lilo fails because the disk is too big. Use lilo -L (or add lba32 to /etc/lilo.conf), then:

  # lilo -L
  Added 2.2.18pre21 *
  # dd if=/dev/sda of=/root/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
  # mcopy /root/bootsect.lnx a:
  # lilo -u /dev/sda
  
  # reboot (into NT)

Then as above in Section 12.10 to update the MS/Windows/NT boot loader.

Remember: Be sure to run the lilo command after you update /etc/lilo.conf or the changes will not be in effect.

Kernel Images

Note that new kernel images go into /boot/vmlinux. The old is put into /boot/vmlinux.old. Thus you can have a /etc/lilo.conf like:

  image=/vmlinuz
    label=linux
    root=/dev/hda2
  image=/vmlinuz.old
    label=linux.old
    root=/dev/hda2

Note also that /vmlinux is a symbolic link into the actual file stored in /boot.