From Mandriva Community Wiki

Contents 1 pros 1.1 lilo 1.2 grub 2 cons 2.1 lilo 2.2 grub 3 kernel parameters 4 Conclusion

[edit] pros

[edit] lilo

• RAID1 support (native)
• LVM support (using a patch, restriction: the LV must not span PVs)
• support new filesystem quite easily (e.g.: reiser4)
• the config file is checked before rebooting
• mandriva graphical patch allows 800x600 240 colors, with a menu and a progress bar
• Xen support through mbootpack

[edit] grub

• the default choice on most distros (nb : debian has both grub and lilo)
• supported by RedHat (and heavily patched)
• Xen support
• RAID1 support (need a patch from RedHat)
• powerful for experts (everything can be done in grub command line)
• no chainloading from the filesystem when stage1.5 is embedded in the first sectors of the drive
• don't need to be re-installed when devices are renumbered after a live modification of the partition table
• easy chaining of menu.lst from other distributions

[edit] cons

[edit] lilo

• no dmraid support (we could, the dmraid support patch conflicts with the device-mapper (LVM) patch we're using)
• our graphical patch is from an old mandriva employee, the file format is quite picky

[edit] grub

• rebootin (booting once to a specific entry) support is either complex (the official way), or broken (savedefault patch)
• i18n keyboard is quite awful (the official way is "setkey", Pixel used to have a "keytable" patch a la lilo, but he dropped it since then)
• things are displayed in English, no i18n possible (maybe we should drop things displayed (using hiddenmenu?))
• the graphical splashimage patch is only 640x480 14 colors, no progress bar (nb: progress bars not that useful nowadays). Using gfxboot would remove those limitations (and add many more features)
• the menu place is chosen using text (80x25) coordinates, not graphical (640x480) coordinates
• adding a kernel command line option (eg: noapic) is quite hard (RedHat has an "append" patch for this, not accepted upstream)
• the default entry is a number, i.e. not very readable
• the naming (hd0,X) is weird when used to linux naming (hdaX)
• plays dirty tricks to modify filesystems using device directly, even though filesystem is mounted
• LVM is not supported as a boot filesystem

[edit] kernel parameters

• kernel accepts up to 1024 chars (?)
• isolinux 3.11+gfxboot: 256 chars (initrd=xxx.rdz <para-given-in-isolinux.cfg> BOOT_IMAGE=xxx <boot-time user-provided parameters>)
• grub 0.97: 256 chars
• lilo 22.6: 256 chars (BOOT_IMAGE=xxx root=301 <paras>)

[edit] Conclusion

• the main issue for using grub by default is the graphical limitation, which would go away using gfxboot.
• dropping lilo is wrong. Having both is really useful as a fallback. The drawback of having both is the necessity of maintaining both and handling both config files.