Point wise comparison between grub-legacy and lilo followed by the comparison between grub2 and grub-legacy

1. LILO vs GRUB vs GRUB 2
The Ultimate Showdown

2. LILO vs GRUB
●
●
LILO allows a single
command with
arguments.
User should manually
overwrite the
configuration file.The
users need to take an
approach like booting
from a live CD
●
●
GRUB has a better
interactive command
line interface.
Dynamically
configurable nature
allows much easier
to correct a
misconfigured
configuration file in
GRUB.

3. LILO vs GRUB contd...
●
●
●
Low technical
support
Network booting not
allowed
Very well tested and
used widely by sys
admins
●
●
●
●
Very good technical
support
Can boot from
network
Well documented
Understands
filesystems.

4. GRUB vs GRUB 2
●
●
Has two config file
menu.lst and
grub.conf
Very hard to change
the configuration for
normal user
●
●
Has only one main
configuration file
(grub.cfg)
Grub-mkconfig
automatically
changes the
configuration.

5. GRUB vs GRUB 2
●
●
Partition numbers
start from 0
Configuration file has
completely different
format.
●
●
Partition number
start from 1
Configuration file is
now very close to a
full scripting
language.

6. GRUB vs GRUB 2
●
●
●
GRUB uses physical
and logical
addresses to
address the disk.
Supports many free
and proprietary OS
Can read from many
partitions but not
from newer partitions
(LVM, RAID)
●
●
●
GRUB 2 uses UUID
to identify a disk thus
is more reliable.
Supports even more
O.S
Supports LVM and
RAID devices.

7. GRUB vs GRUB 2
●
●
Image files are
divided in three parts
Very few modules
available.
●
●
Images reorganized
in two parts. Stages
1, 1.5 , 2 are no
more.
Modules are
increased thus
allowing core.img to
be smaller.