From: almesber@nessie.cs.id.ethz.ch (Werner Almesberger) Subject: ANNOUNCE: LILO alpha.6 released Date: 28 Oct 1992 02:37:03 GMT
The ALPHA test version 0.6 of LILO, the generic boot loader for Linux,
is on sunsite.unc.edu in pub/Linux/incoming and on tsx-11.mit.edu in
pub/linux/ALPHA/lilo:
lilo.6.tar.Z source and documentation
lilo.6.ps.Z documentation in PostScript format
Besides fixing minor bugs and misfeatures, lilo.6 has the following
new features and a major bug fix:
- LILO should now be a lot better at booting other operating
systems.
- command-line arguments can be passed to the kernel and to init.
With the 0.98pl3 kernel and the imminent release of poeigl,
options like "single" (enter single user mode) and "root=301"
(use device 301 aka /dev/hda1 for the root FS) are recognized.
- BSS is now cleared for all image types.
The documentation now contains a troubleshooting section at the
end. One feature is no longer documented: setting the swap partition
in the kernel image (much like setting the root device) is no longer
supported by recent kernels. I'll eventually remove support for this
from LILO too.
Bad news for SCSI users who haven't yet succeeded in installing
LILO: /etc/lilo/disktab is still needed. I hope to get rid of it in
the next release.
Because this release should fix most of the problems with booting
MS-DOS from LILO, I'd like to hear about cases, where upgrading from
lilo.5 (or older) to lilo.6 didn't help or even made the situation
worse. When sending a report, please indicate the version(s) of
DR/MS/PC-DOS you're using.
The CHANGES section is at the end of this posting.
- Werner
================================== cut here ===================================
Changes from version 5 to 6
===========================
Boot sector
-----------
- added command-line argument passing.
- now clears BSS of traditional images too.
- chain.b is now more careful about register values when invoking
the boot sector of the other OS.
- added an interface for externally provided command lines.
- added experimental recognition of linear addresses.
Map installer
-------------
- fixed opening the disktab file. (Using -f didn't work.)
- fixed use of BIOS codes for the map file: the tilde is now appended
before the BIOS code.
- added a chdir("/") when using -r
- added more sanity checks.
- added generation of linear addresses.
Documentation
-------------
- removed all references to swap device settings in the kernel because
recent kernels don't support that any longer.
- added a troubleshooting section.
- several minor fixes and improvements.
-- _________________________________________________________________________ / Werner Almesberger, ETH Zuerich, CH almesber@nessie.cs.id.ethz.ch / / IFW A44 Tel. +41 1 254 7213 almesberger@rzvax.ethz.ch / /_BITNET:_ALMESBER@CZHETH5A__HEPNET/CHADNET:_[20579::]57414::ALMESBERGER_/