Prelude76 Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 Any hints/tips/opinions on best way to load up Linus Mandrake 9 on my system?I want to try out Linus, to see what its all about, but don't want to screw up my system.I have Win98SE on on partition, and WinXP Pro on second. They are each on their own hard drive. Will Linux recognize this setup? Will it be another option during boot, or will I get Linux or Windows boot, and then go to Windows and choose Windows98 or Windows XP? I'm using just the XP built-in OS selector on bootup, nothing fancy like Bootmagic or Bootstar (though i can always 'overnet'-it if its recommended Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 Do you have enough free space to start off with? If you don't then you will either have to sacrifice one of you Windows OSes or use a repartitioning tool to create some more space. As long as you have the space, install Linux, and make a Linux boot disk. To be safe, don't install LILO or GRUB, and use your Linux boot disk to start Linux. If you do install say GRUB, it will allow you to multiboot into your Windows OSes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted April 10, 2003 Author Share Posted April 10, 2003 Boot disk? like, a diskette? I don't even know if mine works anymore. hehe.. it's been like 2 years since I've last seen a diskette around my computer. Is that GRUR included on the 3CD pack for Linux Mandrake 9? As long as it won't conflict with the windows partitions, I don't mind having to pick my OS on boot-up. as for HD space, it's not really an issue. I think one drive is 40GB, other is 80GB, or vice versa. But would a 3rd party tool like BootMagic be better? Can it recognize Linux 9?thanks for the input Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 As long as you've got enough free space on a fat32 partition Mandrake 9.0 can resize that partition in the install process ( see to it that you did a good defrag of that partition or you will loose data ) Take at least 10G for Mandrake, for a start that will do. Mandrake will split that 10G in a "home" and a "root" partition and add a small "swap" partition. ( the "home" partition will be the biggest part ) All this will go relatively smooth.When choosing the file system ( like fat32 in windows ) go for the ext3 or reiserfs. They are journaled filesystems and allow better recovery in case of a systemcrash or powerfailure.As for the bootloader: With Mandrake during install you can choose Grub or Lilo, I think Lilo is easier. If you allow lilo to install in your bootsector, every time you boot you'll get the choice between Mandrake, Windows 98, Windows XP and floppydisk ( for rescue )On the other side if you write Lilo to floppy, your computer will boot as usual ( win98 winXP ) and only boot into Mandrake when you insert the floppydisk.From within Mandrake 9.0 can read and write on your win98 partitions ( fat32 ) If you could get a hold of the new Mandrake 9.1 then also the XP partition (NTFS) would be accesible.Hope this helps you.More questions ? Just ask them!Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 Hey Bruno,Would it also be possible to write LILO to a floppy, which would work the way you described for trying out Mandrake, and then, if you decide to keep Mandrake, to go back into the Mandrake Control Center and have it write LILO to the hard drive for a permanent boot solution? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 I'm not sure it would work in the Mandrake Control Center, but it might do the trick !On the other hand, if you first adapt lilo ( putting win 98 and win XP in there ) there are ways to do it from the command line.Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 Would it also be possible to write LILO to a floppy, which would work the way you described for trying out Mandrake, and then, if you decide to keep Mandrake, to go back into the Mandrake Control Center and have it write LILO to the hard drive for a permanent boot solution?Yes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 Would it also be possible to write LILO to a floppy, which would work the way you described for trying out Mandrake, and then, if you decide to keep Mandrake, to go back into the Mandrake Control Center and have it write LILO to the hard drive for a permanent boot solution?Yes! Wow, that's great! Thanks, peachy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted April 11, 2003 Author Share Posted April 11, 2003 Thanx y'all.I'm gonna try out this Linux system this weekend. Getting sick and tired of having to re-format Windows XP every few months coz of instability issues. I can't remember off the top of my head if I downloaded Mandrake 9.0 or 9.1, but I heard Mandrake is the way to go so I'll start there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nlinecomputers Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 Any hints/tips/opinions on best way to load up Linus Mandrake 9 on my system?I want to try out Linus, to see what its all about, but don't want to screw up my system.I'm not sure Linus would want to be installed on your system but you never know about them crazy Fins.Sorry couldn't resist I know it was just a typo. I personally am running Mandrake 9.0 on an old celeron as a Samba server. It works great. I NEVER have to reboot it unlike my Windows 2K server that had to reboot every 3 weeks. If your going to dual boot MK I'd use GRUB as the installer and put the linux boot sector on the same drive as your current XP boot sector. As long as your have drive space you should be able to tri-boot with a Grub menu letting you chose between Linux and Windows and then if you choose windows you'll get a second menu, the Windows XP boot menu, that will let you chose between it and 98. If you set it up correctly.Mandrake is an easy version of Linux to work with. The various "drake" tools make adminersting the thing easy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henderrob Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 I have LILO defaulting to the Windows loader, offering either Window 98SE or XP. I use Mandrake 8.2 and I think I like it more than Red Hat 8, which I load with a boot disk. I haven't figured out how to add this partition to LILO yet. For a Linux newcomer, I think Mandrake offers more than Red Hat 8 (which I do like). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 I'm glad you like Mandrake, so do I.It is not hard to add RedHat to your /etc/lilo.conf and have all four ( win98, winXP Mandrake and RedHat ) in your boot menu.For a good howto on lilo:http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lilo.htmMake a backup of your Mandrake lilo.conf and just add the lines for RedHat in the original one. Have a good look at the original files for both Mandrake and Redhat there might be special vga entries.Have fun ! BrunoPS: Mandrake 8.2 is rather old, why not try the new 9.1 ? I think you will like that one even more ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henderrob Posted April 16, 2003 Share Posted April 16, 2003 Thanks for the LILO lesson link. I'll be using the link to add Red Hat to LILO after I finish re=installing everything. I just had an semi-accidental reformat of my harddrive and have been re-installing everything. Nothing like a good reformat to clean the clutter. Just wished I made sure that my backup CDRW's worked. This kind of clean-up, losing all my documents and settings, was not what I had in mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted April 16, 2003 Share Posted April 16, 2003 Poor henderrob, isn't this why we all love computers ? Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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