future co-existence with Linux?

[Tor Arntsen tor@spacetec.no]

>When LILO boots a Linux partition, it reads the kernel from the partition 
>into memory and executes it (when LILO is installed, the locations of the
>disk sectors containing the kernel are stored in the boot record with it).

Actually, the boot record contains the disk sectors of a file containing
the disk sectors of the kernel.  In that way it is not necessary to
update the boot record when a new kernel is to be installed, you just
have to update the information in that file.

[The loader can be very small (it fits on the boot record, as mentioned)
 because it doesn't have to know about the file system layout.  A separate,
 user-level program is used instead, its job is just to find the sector
 numbers of the kernel and update the file mentioned above.  In this way
 LILO can be installed on the boot record just once]
-- 
Tor Arntsen (tor@spacetec.no)                       Standard disclaimers apply.
WWW kills the Internet