get it to work. boot is /dev/hda in both cases. rh root is /dev/hda1 and debian is /dev/hda2. I can only have one root statement in the preamble block and lilo does not like path names starting /dev in the image line. So how to do this?
AFAIR this is how I did it. Hope the explanation is clear. Make sure you have a boot disk for both distros if they are already installed.
Basically, rather than trying to do the whole thing from within one instance of lilo on the MBR, each distro is installed (or lilo run) to place the boot loader on the appropriate boot partition for that distro.
Only the last distro to be installed (or to be more exact, the final instance of lilo that is run) has lilo installed onto the mbr and it has lilo.conf set up to redirect to each of the other secondary boot loaders. This is essentially what happens in a dual-boot with windows for example and the lilo stanza is very similar.
This what worked for me.
In distroA, edit lilo.conf so that it is installed onto the boot partition of distroA, not onto the mbr of hda e.g. I have boot=/dev/hda2 as first line . Also the stanza for distroA contains a line pointing to the root partition e.g. root=/dev/hda5
Run lilo of course.
Now boot into distroB and edit lilo.conf so that there is an entry that points towards the 'secondary boot loader' which was installed in distroA using 'other' e.g.
other=/dev/hda2 label=distroA
The stanza for distroB - in distroB lilo.conf - contains the line root=/dev/hdc3 since that is where root partition for distroB resides.
First line of lilo.conf is boot=/dev/hda i.e installed onto MBR.
(And run lilo).
Finally make sure that /dev/hda is marked as the bootable partition with fdisk if this has been changed - if not then you should be able to ignore that.
OK, so the boot process starts with lilo on the MBR. Selecting DistroB takes it to the boot and root partitions as usual but selecting distroA chains to the secondary boot loader which then sets up the boot and root partitions.
This method is elegant and easy to manage since each distro has its own lilo.conf . It also avoids complicated lilo entries, copying kernels from other distros into one boot partition etc.
HTH - let me know if you try it and have any problems. I'm working from notes and shaky memory but I'm pretty sure I haven't missed out anything essential. If you don't have a /boot partition then you'll need to experiment - my guess is to point at the root partition in that case.
Regards Syd