Installing LILO loader hangs during SETUP on -current
by DarkVision from LinuxQuestions.org on (#56PQX)
I just bought a new PC including two hard disk drives: a SSD for the main os and a extra hdd for data.
Both drives were formatted for use with windows.
When running setup i was using cfdisk -z /dev/sda to create a new dos partition table on drive sda. Drive sdb was untouched at this point.
I have started setup and packages got installed to sda.
When it comes to installing the LILO bootloader i have selected "SIMPLE" and "1024x768"... but installing the LILO loader never finishes.
I started to investigate the problem. Took me some time to figure out that logfiles were located in /etc...
The lilo command failed when setting a new UUID to drive sdb because it thinks there is a WINDOWS OS on drive sdb and that apply a new ID to such a drive might be a bad idea. Too bad i did not backup the error logfile.
I created a new dos partition table for drive sdb and now installing the linux loader worked like normal.
I suggest to add an "BE VERBOSE" option or at least tell the user where to find the logfiles... /etc is not a usual place to search for logfiles.
At the end i got -current installed on my new system, i just had to replace LILO with GRUB because the LILO menu did not appear and i had to enter the name of the OS i want to boot. The GRUB menu works fine.
P.S. System is a AMD Ryzen 5 3600G with AMD Radeon VEGA Graphics. Mainboard is a ASUS B450M-A, UEFI was disabled before installing Slackware. Legacy mode is enabled.


Both drives were formatted for use with windows.
When running setup i was using cfdisk -z /dev/sda to create a new dos partition table on drive sda. Drive sdb was untouched at this point.
I have started setup and packages got installed to sda.
When it comes to installing the LILO bootloader i have selected "SIMPLE" and "1024x768"... but installing the LILO loader never finishes.
I started to investigate the problem. Took me some time to figure out that logfiles were located in /etc...
The lilo command failed when setting a new UUID to drive sdb because it thinks there is a WINDOWS OS on drive sdb and that apply a new ID to such a drive might be a bad idea. Too bad i did not backup the error logfile.
I created a new dos partition table for drive sdb and now installing the linux loader worked like normal.
I suggest to add an "BE VERBOSE" option or at least tell the user where to find the logfiles... /etc is not a usual place to search for logfiles.
At the end i got -current installed on my new system, i just had to replace LILO with GRUB because the LILO menu did not appear and i had to enter the name of the OS i want to boot. The GRUB menu works fine.
P.S. System is a AMD Ryzen 5 3600G with AMD Radeon VEGA Graphics. Mainboard is a ASUS B450M-A, UEFI was disabled before installing Slackware. Legacy mode is enabled.