Grub can be used to boot Linux instead of Lilo, especially for Linux to coexist with other operating systems, and it has the following features compared to Lilo:
①, support for large hard drives: Today most Linux distributions have the same problem: the root partition (/boot partition) cannot be divided into more than 1024 cylinders, typically around 8.4G, or Lilo cannot be installed, or the system will not boot properly after installation. This is not the case with grub, as long as your large hard drive is in LBA mode, grub can boot the root partition to an operating system other than 8G.
②, Support boot screen: Grub support in the boot at the same time display a boot screen. For players, this can make their own personalized boot screen, for PC manufacturers, this can be turned on the computer to display some information and manufacturer's logo. Grub supports 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 various modes of boot screen, and can automatically detect the selection of the best mode, and windows that 320x400 the boot screen.
③, two modes of execution: Grub can not only be used for routine boot through configuration files, but also can dynamically change the parameters of the boot before booting, and can dynamically load various devices. For example, if you compile a new core under Linux, but not sure if it works, you can dynamically change grub's parameters at boot time and try to load the new core for use. The GRUB command line has very powerful features and supports the same historical features as bash or doskey, and you can use the up and down keys to find previous commands.
④, menu-style selection: Under Lilo, you need to manually enter the operating system name to guide the different operating systems. And grub uses a menu to select a different system for booting. You can also configure various parameters, such as delay time, default operating system, and so on.
⑤, partition location changes do not need to reconfigure: Lilo is loaded into the operating system by reading the absolute sector on the hard disk, so each partition change must reconfigure LILO, for example, you adjust the size of the partition with PQ magic, That Lilo won't be able to boot the partition's operating system until you reconfigure it. Grub, however, reads the kernel directly into memory through the file system, so that grub can boot the system as long as the path to the operating system core does not change. In addition, GRUB has a number of very powerful features. For example, support for a variety of external devices, dynamic loading of the operating system kernel, even through the network to load the operating system core. Grub supports multiple file systems, supports multiple executable formats, supports automatic decompression, and can boot operating systems that do not support multiple booting.