Replace lilo with grub2

As a Slackware user I use lilo as bootloader by default. But I also like to change things and try out new/other things. One is grub2 which I'll explain a little in this article. The topics of this article are:

Create a backup of your current boot loader
Download, compile and install grub2
Generate a basic configuration and install grub2 into MBR
Define a new timeout
Change the distributor from GNU/Linux to Slackware
Loading the kernel in framebuffer
Changing menu colors
Add a initrd

TNS lookup over LDAP

This article describes how to migrate tnsnames.ora into LDAP. My current tnsnames.ora looks like this:

$ cat tnsnames.ora
...
PINK=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=192.168.56.100)(PORT=1521)))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=PINK)(GLOBAL_NAME=PINK)))
FLOYD=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=192.168.56.100)(PORT=1522)))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=FLOYD)(GLOBAL_NAME=FLOYD)))
...

Update your bios with Linux

I was thinking a lot about a bios update for my HTPC lately. The hardware is a ASUS Pundit P2-M2A690G running Slackware Linux 14.0 and XBMC. The bios itself allows a bios update through a special prepared CD and some other options but that was not what I was looking for. I just wanted to download the latest bios and install it. After some research I found a pretty cool software that did the job: flashrom.