Creating a Boot Diskette
Next, you'll be given the opportunity to create a customized boot diskette
for your Red Hat Linux system (see Figure 75).
Figure 75: Creating a Boot
Diskette
A boot diskette can be handy for a number of reasons:
- Use It Instead of LILO -- You can use a boot diskette instead of
LILO. This is handy if you're trying Red Hat Linux for the first time, and you'd
feel more comfortable if the boot process for your other operating system
is left unchanged. With a boot diskette, going back to your other
operating system is as easy as removing the boot diskette and rebooting.
- Use It In Emergencies -- The boot diskette can also be used
in conjunction with a rescue disk, which will give you the tools necessary
to get an ailing system back on its feet again4.
- Use It When Another Operating System Overwrites LILO -- Other
operating systems may not be as flexible as Red Hat Linux when it comes to
supported boot methods. Quite often, installing or updating another
operating system can cause the master boot record (originally containing
LILO) to be overwritten, making it impossible to boot your Red Hat Linux
installation. The boot diskette can then be used to boot Red Hat Linux so you can
reinstall LILO.
Given these reasons to create a boot diskette, you should seriously
consider doing so. Select Yes and press [Space] to create a
boot diskette. Next, you'll see a dialog box directing you to insert a
blank diskette in your computer's diskette drive. Select Ok, and
press [Space] when you've done so.
After a short delay, your boot diskette will be done. After removing it
from your diskette drive, label it clearly. Note that if you would like to
create a boot diskette after the installation, you'll be able to do so. If
you boot your system with the boot diskette (instead of LILO), make sure
you create a new boot diskette if you make any changes to your kernel. For
more information, please see the mkbootdisk man page, by typing
man mkbootdisk at the shell prompt.