GRUB & NT Kernel Systems

[mobrien_12]

OK, I would like to know something.  I remember when Win2k came out, I was curious about the differences in dual booting.  All the articles I could find online described this really complicated method where you had to get the NT boot loader to load Linux with a binary image of GRUB and blah blah blah.  Now I get curious years later to see if it has changed and I can't find any new information.

The GRUB manual talks chainloader for "Dos/Windows" but that is just for 9x from what I understand.

Some of you have a dual boot system with Linux and Win2k or XP.  How does it work?  Does it use the really complex method described above?

Just a rough description to satisfy my curiousity would be good enough, please.

[Orethrius]

Actually, "chainloader" just passes off control to a separate bootloader, and as such works with both 9x and NT variants of Windows.  My grub.conf looks like this:

Code: [Select]


#
# Sample boot menu configuration file
#

# Boot automatically after 30 secs.
timeout 30

# By default, boot the second entry.
default 1

# Fallback to the first entry.
fallback 0

# Windows
title=Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

# For booting GNU/Linux
title  Gentoo Linux 2.6.13-r3
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/bzImage root=/dev/hdb3 agp=try_unsupported

# For installing GRUB into the hard disk
title Install GRUB into the hard disk
root    (hd0,0)
setup   (hd0)

# Change the colors.
title Change the colors
color light-green/black blink-green/black


I plan on eventually applying that "color" line to the bootloader screen from the get-go, with an option to change it back to white-on-black if the blinking green-on-black gets too irritating.

[Pathos]

...you had to get the NT boot loader to load Linux with a binary image of GRUB and blah blah blah...

I wonder if that was before they worked out how to chainload windows NT so had to use the NT bootloader.

its a lot simpler now.

nearly every machine we've installed linux on already had MS windows and everytime the grub/lilo has autoconfigured perfectly. They are very easy to alter too.

[mobrien_12]

Thank you both.  

I was under the impression that MS had made the NT bootloader incompatible with GRUBs chainloader, although I've used it for other OS (such as FreeBSD) in the past.  

Perhaps, like Pathos suggested, it used to be like that.