[techtalk] Other OSes on a Linux box

[Courtney M Eckhardt]

In message <Pine.LNX.4.10.10001041901100.8524-100000 at stalefish.localhost>, meza
nin at home.com writes:
>On Tue, 4 Jan 2000, Caitlyn Martin wrote:
>
>> NT wants to be in control, and will rewrite your master boot record.  The
>> best way to do what you are proposing is to install Linux first, format a
>> suitably sized primary partition to old-fashioned DOS FAT format.
>> Install NT there and convert to NTFS.  You can use something like System
>> Commander (if you have DOS/Win9x as well) or the Boot Manager from
>> Partition Magic to choose your OS at boot time.  Both of these products
>> play nicely with both Linux and NT.
>
>One thing I'd like to point out about NT is that it wants to remain on the
>main harddrive.  It won't boot or work anywhere else at least when I was
>trying to figure out what "stable" operating system I should use should
>be.
>
>Beverly

I just joined the list, but I believe (after reading the thread
history) that I have something to offer here...

As far as I know, windows (any flavor) wants to be at the beginning of
your hard drive, because it epects to be able to put certain things in
certain places that are relative to the first track (if my memory
isn't being spotty).  Any flavor of windows *will* overwrite the
master boot record and punt lilo.  I have been told about two methods
which are reputed to allow some flavor of Linux and some flavor of
windows to coexist as peacefully as they ever will.  The second is not
necessarily nice to have to do if you weren't already planning on
formatting the hard drive, but I'm told (and believe!) that you must
be very, very careful when attempting stuff like this.  The first is
probably the method to use when adding windows to an existing system,
though I've written it as if you were starting from a clean drive.

Method 1: 
Partition the drive, windows partition physically first.  Install
Linux.  Configure lilo.  Make a boot disk, including all of the lilo
configuration information (so that it will boot off the floppy the way
you eventually want it to boot normally).  Install windows.  Boot from
floppy.  Rerun lilo and check configurations.  Pray at appropriate
points during the process.

Method 2: 
Partition the drive, windows partition physically first.  Install
windows.  Install Linux.  Configure lilo.  Pray at appropriate points.

Of course, both of these methods assume you'd rather use lilo than
something third-party.

I have never actually done all steps of either process, but I have
seen the results, and both work nicely.

Have fun and good luck,
Courtney

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