LILO is the most commonly used boot loader for Linux on Intel-based/compatible systems. A boot loader is a program that loads the operating system into the computer’s memory from its hard disk when the computer is first started up. When a computer is booted, the first thing it does is to look at a fixed sector of its hard disk; the “master boot record” (or MBR). The program it finds there (in this case LILO) is responsible for loading and starting whatever operating system the computer is going to run. LILO, which stands for LInux LOader, is a very efficient boot loader, and it may be used to start other operating systems in addition to Linux.
LILO is the most commonly used boot loader for Linux on Intel-based/compatible systems. A boot loader is a program that loads the operating system into the computer’s memory from its hard disk when the computer is first started up. When a computer is booted, the first thing it does is to look at a fixed sector of its hard disk; the “master boot record” (or MBR). The program it finds there (in this case LILO) is responsible for loading and starting whatever operating system the computer is going to run. LILO, which stands for LInux LOader, is a very efficient boot loader, and it may be used to start other operating systems in addition to Linux.
The first visual indication of LILO’s functioning is its familiar boot prompt, LILO: (which is itself a four-character diagnostic indicating the progress of the boot loading process). Pressing the Tab key in response to this prompt brings up a list of boot choices. You can select one of them by entering its name at the prompt, and you can specify boot-time options by appending them to that command line. For example, entering linux single will boot the default kernel in single-user mode on most systems.
