Linux on a Dell laptop dual-boot W2K
Hey all, I was wondering if anyone has had any "good" experiences installing Linux and W2K on the same machine? I currently have the following hardware setup: Dell Inspiron 8000 Laptop Pentium III 700mhz w/256MB RAM Toshiba DVD-ROM Integrated Actiontec 10/100MB NIC \ 56K Modem Intel® 815e AGPSet Chipset with 4X AGP 10GB HD - currently 1 partition NTFS file system My thoughts were to install Caldera e-Desktop 2.4 which I have had some success with. What I'm not sure about is re-partitioning the HD to accommodate 2 Operating Systems. Caldera comes with a slim version of Partition Magic, but I haven't had the opportunity to use it on NTFS, so that is where any suggestions would help. Thanks for the time. Matthew
I was wondering if anyone has had any "good" experiences installing Linux and W2K on the same machine? I currently have the following hardware setup:
Yes, I've done it a few times. The best approach I've found (on my desktop, anyways) is to start with a fresh disk, partition accordingly and install Win2k first, followed by your distro of choice. On the bright side, if you install Win2k second, or just reinstall over an existing Win2k install, it does you the favor of _not_ overwriting your MBR, which is certainly nicer than Win9x installs.
Dell Inspiron 8000 Laptop Pentium III 700mhz w/256MB RAM Toshiba DVD-ROM Integrated Actiontec 10/100MB NIC \ 56K Modem Intel® 815e AGPSet Chipset with 4X AGP 10GB HD - currently 1 partition NTFS file system
That's actually the same model (with different specs) that I ordered a week ago and expect to arrive within the next three days. I plan on doing a full write-up after installation for the Linux on Laptops site (http://www.linux-laptop.net/ previously www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/), so stay tuned.
My thoughts were to install Caldera e-Desktop 2.4 which I have had some success with. What I'm not sure about is re-partitioning the HD to accommodate 2 Operating Systems. Caldera comes with a slim version of Partition Magic, but I haven't had the opportunity to use it on NTFS, so that is where any suggestions would help.
I've never resized NTFS myself, but Mandrake (my distribution of choice) comes with an excellent utility as part of the install called DiskDrake, which is an open-source equivalent of Partition Magic, and I've found to be far preferable. Even if you don't want to use Mandrake, you could always boot it up and go through the install until you pass the partitioning section near the beginning. I believe DiskDrake can resize NTFS in Mandrake 8.0, but don't quote me on that. Either way, I like it a lot better than Partition Magic, and it's just as full-featured. Brian J. Conway dogbert@clue4all.net Geek for hire: http://clue4all.net/resume Power Mac G4 Cube. Some of us are getting laid tonight. (http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20010509)
I've got Win98, Win2K, and Linux Mandrake 8.0 all running happily on the same machine, so I'll throw my 2 cents into the discussion. As has been previously mentioned, if you're starting from scratch, just reformat EVERYTHING with the partitions needed for both OSes. In my case, I started out with a new harddrive to be installed so I formatted the new HD to be my Windows disk, involving (serveral) FAT32 partitions to be used for the Windows system and also to be used to easily transfer data back and forth between the Linux install and the Windows install. (Namely, MP3s... :) ) I also made a NTFS partition (or rather, left space for) to install 2K on - I chose this strategy because I needed some Win2K NTFS features (note that Windows 2K uses NTFS5.0 and Windows NT uses NTFS 4.<something> - there are differences). I did all this via Partition Magic rescue disks 'cause I like the GUI (and I like the fact that it formats the partitions for me so I can then copy all the existing Windows data via Linux (yeah, yeah, mkdosfs) - but this was a new HD install). The FIRST step is to install Windows 95/98/ME if you want to - if you're going with 2K, then just don't bother... the Win9x series assumes that it's the only OS and mucks with the MBR. It's much easier just to do it *first*. (In other words, if you're *ever* going to want to use Win9x decide to do it NOW because it'll be much harder later.) IMPORTANT NOTE: Win9x *MUST* be installed on the first harddrive (ie, on the master drive of the primary IDE controller). If it is not, it WILL NOT BOOT. Win2K *may* require this as well, but I'm pretty sure it can boot off pretty much anywhere (my install of 2K has it *way* past the 1024 cylinder on the master drive of my primary IDE controller, so don't worry about the 1024 cylinder boundary - Win9x MUST be on the first 1024 cylinders, I think). Next I installed Win2K. It'll see the existing Win9x install (if there is one) and set itself up to dual-boot between the two. It's bootloader is actually on the boot sector of the Windows partition, NOT the MBR. Which is good, because that means LILO/Grub/Whatever can boot it. Win2K made me reformat the existing NTFS(NT version) partition before it would install on it, but after that, it went on with no problems. Finally, I installed Mandrake. Mandrake saw my two Windows installs, added them to Grub (the bootloader I chose, feel free to use Lilo), and then installed flawlessly onto the newly ReiserFS partitioned secondary HD. Once a that was done, all I have to do is choose "Windows" from the Grub bootloader to boot into Windows (or rather, to launch the Windows 200 Boot Loader which boots wither Windows OR Win9x). As others have said, you probably either want a FAT32 partition to transfer data between the OSes, or just make the Win2K system partition FAT32 - it'll work fine that way (my Dad runs his computer with Win2K on a FAT32 partition, and it runs without any hitches). The one warning is that PM5.0 doesn't support the Win2K version of NTFS, so you won't be able to muck around with NTFS partitions with it. It also doesn't support ReiserFS, but I doubt anyone expected it to... (I believe that PM 6 DOES support the Win2K version of NTFS, though - and of course, it supports ext2 and Linux swap partitions (although PM5 can't move/resize Linux swap partitions - just delete 'em and recreate 'em if you ever need to move/resize them with PM - PM6 might, haven't borrowed my Dad's copy to find out)). Good luck! On Thu, 31 May 2001, Simoncini, Matthew wrote:
Hey all,
I was wondering if anyone has had any "good" experiences installing Linux and W2K on the same machine? I currently have the following hardware setup:
Dell Inspiron 8000 Laptop Pentium III 700mhz w/256MB RAM Toshiba DVD-ROM Integrated Actiontec 10/100MB NIC \ 56K Modem Intel� 815e AGPSet Chipset with 4X AGP 10GB HD - currently 1 partition NTFS file system
My thoughts were to install Caldera e-Desktop 2.4 which I have had some success with. What I'm not sure about is re-partitioning the HD to accommodate 2 Operating Systems. Caldera comes with a slim version of Partition Magic, but I haven't had the opportunity to use it on NTFS, so that is where any suggestions would help.
Thanks for the time.
Matthew
_______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
participants (3)
-
Brian J. Conway -
Dan Potter -
Simoncini, Matthew