$200 lindows computer: A caveat on lilo and miscellany on reinstalling

[Joel Hammer]

Just in case someone else has lindows.
1. I noted a while back the my lilo.conf file seemed to change by itself.
2. I also hosed by system twice and couldn't run lilo after chroot properly
after booting up with Knoppix. It complained about a lack of a /dev
directory and failure to find /dev/hda.

This is the first debian system I have really played with, so I don't
know if this is lindows or debian but:
     The lilo program is really a script that calls lilo.real,
     the actually lilo program. I am not sure what the
     advantage is of this but the script does checking for
     /dev and some things I am too lazy to figure out. So,
     maybe this is why lilo wouldn't work from Knoppix.

Second, there is a binary file, fooze, which seems to have the code that
regenerates lilo.conf. I haven't found out what calls fooze yet, but,
I have a feeling that foozes' tenure on my machine is going to be short.

BTW, reinstalling lindows is just too easy. The install disk is done in
about 5 minutes or so, and then, if you are using the Lindows warehouse,
you just go there, log in, and you can get a list of all the software you
had previously installed before you hosed your system. You can quickly
click on these packages and they are installed in easy debian style while
you are browsing the internet. (BTW, it seems that the warehouse does
not check any internal ID on your computer, it justs wants your email
address and password. This means that you can have a number of lindows
boxes at home all using the same warehouse subscription. Very nice.)
Just keep all your data and a few configuration files (like kdmrc and
Xaccess in my case) in a partition not used by lindows, like a second
hard drive, and all is well. I'll have to start putting my /home directory
there, too, if this keeps up.

Joel