All Things Microsoft > Microsoft Software
Stuck on Win98 - How can I get out?
JusLearnin:
Hey Voidman, I like your style. I have read quite a bit of the dialog on OS's and I really appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions.
I also have another hard drive - 10gb - left over from my Compaq system. It's installed and just sitting there, so instead of partitioning I will work on getting Linix on the 10 gb drive and then I can choose a boot frive when I start up.
Once again, thanks for the info.
JusLearnin:
Hey Voidman, I like your style. I have read quite a bit of the dialog on OS's and I really appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions.
I also have another hard drive - 10gb - left over from my Compaq system. It's installed and just sitting there, so instead of partitioning I will work on getting Linix on the 10 gb drive and then I can choose a boot drive when I start up.
Once again, thanks for the info.
voidmain:
quote:Originally posted by JusLearnin:
I also have another hard drive - 10gb - left over from my Compaq system. It's installed and just sitting there, so instead of partitioning I will work on getting Linix on the 10 gb drive and then I can choose a boot drive when I start up.
--- End quote ---
Yes you can do this easily. I assume you already have both hard drives installed and they are IDE drives. If so, do you have both drives on the same IDE channel (both on the same cable), and the Windows drive is the "master" and the second drive "slave"?
When you go to install Linux your first IDE hard drive would show up as "hda" and your second IDE hard drive would show up as "hdb". Your C: drive would show up as "hda1" (which is the first partition on the first IDE drive). You would install Linux on "hdb".
I usually do a "custom" install rather than a "Server" or "Workstation" install (or whatever the other options are). For a desktop installation I usually set up 3 partitions, in your case "hdb1" of around 50MB (first partition on second IDE drive) and set the filesystem type to type "linux native" and the mount point to "/boot". This is where your boot loader, kernel and initial RAM disk image will reside. I set up a second partition for swap "hdb2" and set it at around 256-512MB depending on how much RAM you have, set the filesystem type to "linux swap". Then I create the 3rd partition "hdb3" to use up the remaining space for the main Linux filesystem, set it to type "linux native" and mount point should be "/".
You will likely also want to be able to have access to your Windows files when booted into Linux so you will want to add "hda1" to the mount table and have it mount under "/c", just make sure you only format "hdb*" partitions and not "hda*". I don't believe this would happen very easily accidentally.
The other thing is the boot loader (menu when you boot your computer which allows you to select the OS). Most distros use LILO for this, RedHat 7.2 is now using a boot loader called GRUB which I believe I like better. Either way no matter which distro you are installing it should set this up automatically, you will likely be asked which OS you want to boot by default and may have the option to enter the delay time before it boots the default OS automatically. It will ask you where you want to install the loader. It should default to "hda" which is the master boot record on the first IDE drive. This is where you would indeed want to install it.
The main thing in a Custom setup is deciding which packages to install (you have plenty of space so you could just select "Everything").
Final thought, if you decide after some time that you want to remove Linux and that Hard Drive. Remember that you installed the boot loader to "hda" or the boot sector of the first IDE drive and the actual boot loader code resides on the second hard drive. If you remove the second drive without restoring the boot sector on the first drive you will not be able to boot Windows. So you have to restore that boot sector with the original one so it will boot Windows as it did before installing the menu boot loader. The easiest way to do this is by creating a Windows Emergency disk and copying FDISK.EXE to that disk (or any bootable DOS diskette with a copy of FDISK.EXE). Boot from that disk and type "FDISK /MBR". That's it, you should be back to where you were before installing Linux. "/MBR" is an undocumented parameter to FDISK for restoring the "Master Boot Record" from the second copy on the drive.
I highly suggest you browse through the install docs of whatever distro you are installing first though. It really is easy to install most distros today as long as you know the lingo.
Hopefully this will help (and isn't too much information).
[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]
voidmain:
Actually, if you are using LILO for your boot loader I don't remember for sure if the partition scheme I gave you above will work. I think it will work with GRUB though but I don't have a two drive system here at home to test it on, and I don't have the energy at the moment to stick a second drive in one of them.
I believe in the past when I added a second drive for Linux I still had to create the "/boot" partition on the first drive. So if you have partition magic, I would shrink the C: drive by about 50MB and create the "/boot" partition there during installation. If you don't have Partition Magic there should be a utility included on your Linux CD called "FIPS" that can split Windows partitions without losing data. It's not quite as easy to use as Partition Magic.
Again, hopefully I am wrong about this and it really is not a big deal (if you have Partition Magic). If you don't want to create a small partition on your first drive you might try the install anyway. It should tell you if it will work or not. And worse case have your boot disk with FDISK.EXE on it so you can restore the MBR as I describe in the previous post in case it doesn't work.
Maybe someone else in here knows for sure. There is plenty of info out on the Net for LILO, less info for GRUB. If I find the definitive answer I will let you know. Heck it is probably in the distro's installation guide.
According to this RedHat 7.2 doc you should be able to install everything on the second drive without a boot partition on the first drive. But like I said, RedHat 7.2 now uses GRUB which is a little more flexible of a boot loader/menu:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.2-Manual/install-guide/ch-dualboot.html
At any rate, I would not skip the "Create Boot Disk" step in the installation. The boot disk will definately work. I've probably raised a lot more fuss over the boot menu than is necessary but it could be a potential issue. There are also ways to make the Windows boot menu boot Linux as a last resort (it's more of a hassle to set up).
At any rate, just go for it, you shouldn't have a problem.
[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]
gump420:
VoidMain, the reason I didn't go into detail on Lindows is that it's still in development; I realize I probably should've mentioned this in my post. Sorry 'bout that. (-;
Anyway, I don't have a machine of my own at the moment (had my motherboard go out on me), but I have one of the new iMacs on order. Ximian probably hasn't been ported to Darwin/Mac OS X yet, but I'll look into it anyway. Package management (or the lack thereof) is one of my few major gripes about OS X, and the only thing I've tried so far (Fink) is kind of a pain in the ass to use (heck, it's annoying to even get set up correctly).
Hopefully Apple will be able to get over their NIH syndrom soon (Not-Invented-Here), because the NeXT installer that OS X ships with is extremely limited.
P.S. I just realized that's an aweful lot of Mac-talk for the Windows section of the forum; however, it seems this topic is mostly about Linux anyways. Perhaps a relocation would be in order?
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