Leonard said:
[email protected]:
Easiest way to do it is install Windows 2000 first. Then install Linux.
Linux will install LILO its boot manager which will give you option to
boot to 2000 or Linux.
Leonard Severt
Windows 2000 Server Setup Team
My experience with this is with a Red Hat 8.0 system, but I think
everything I did is generic linux.
If linux is already on the machine, make a linux boot floppy. To do
this, log on as root, then run mkbootdisk; check the man file for the
arguments. The mkbootdisk command line includes the boot device (your
floppy drive, normally /dev/fd0) and the linux kernel version, and
potentially a lot of other arguments. The command line for _my_ system is
mkbootdisk --device /dev/fd0 2.4.18-27.8.0
Yours will probably be different. Before you proceed, test the boot
floppy and make sure it does boot your system. If you're as paranoid as
I am, make and test another boot floppy, just in case.
Then install windows the usual way, taking care not to reformat or
delete any linux partitions. When that's done, you'll have a system that
boots windows from the hard drive, and linux from the boot floppy. You
might be happy with this as a permanent arrangement; just don't lose or
damage the linux boot floppy. I gather from friends that you can boot
from the Red Hat CD and tell it to start the existing linux system
instead of building a new one, which may be an emergency way back to
life if the kids have fed your linux boot floppies to the dog. I haven't
tried this.
If you want to boot both linux and windows directly from the hard disk
under lilo or grub:
After you install windows, make an emergency repair disk. Then you can
boot to linux and install the same boot loader you previously used, grub
or lilo, taking care that you have an appropriate entry for the new
windows system in the configuration file. This could be dicey. If you
blow the windows part of the configuration, you lose the ability to boot
your brand-new windows system. (Not permanently; you can either fix the
configuration file and, if you're using lilo, rerun lilo to install the
new configuration, or you can use the windows repair process to put the
Master Boot Record back to its default, windows-only state.) Unless you
already have a configuration file generated when you installed linux,
and it includes the version of windows you want to boot, I wouldn't try
to do this manually. Booting from a linux floppy works fine.
The documentation for lilo or grub, and the linux HOWTOs, tell how to
put together the lilo or grub configuration file and install the boot
loader, though there's a certain amount of magic involved.
Another option, possibly safer, is to install the linux boot loader
(grub or lilo) on the linux / partition, and use System Commander,
BootMagic, or some other third-party boot loader to start one system or
the other. This should be safer, as the install processes for the third
party boot loaders detect and automatically set up for all the operating
systems on the machine. I haven't tried this approach.
BTW, I've been told it's possible to add a linux option to the windows
boot loader, so it comes up with a choice of windows or linux. Anybody
know how that's done?
No matter how you set up to boot routinely, keep the linux boot
floppy(ies) for emergencies.
73,
JohnW
