Very Computer

Does anyone have experience using System Commander vs Boot Manager vs Lilo.
Which of the 3 would you recommend to boot multiple os's.

None of them! Use an IDE switch with multiple HardDrives. You can find
a device called Winux, which is made by Fujitsu, at
http://www.unipress.com/winux .  With multiple discrete hard drives you
will not run the risk of currupting your data when you
reconfigure/repartition you solo hard drive, and if you solo boot disk
crashes, you will still be able to use one of the remaining boot disks
(you can have up to three boot disks, three selectable C: drives.

http://www.unipress.com/winux

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I haven't used System Commander, but I have been using Boot Manager
*and* Lilo as long as I have been using linux.  Some books claim that
linux doesn't behave well with Boot Manager, but whatever led to those
claims was fixed before I started using linux last year.  I already
had Boot Manger on my system, so I continued to use it.  It doesn't
know how to boot linux directly, but it can find lilo on the boot
track of any partition and use it to start linux.  Lilo has no
objection to being a secondary boot loader.

It also has everything necessary to be a primary boot loader and start
other systems, although I have never used it as such.  Some people
have difficulty configuring lilo, so you might want prefer to
install and familiarize yourself with another boot loader before
adding linux to your system.

This is not an important issue.  Once you start your linux system, it
will run for a long time.  You will only need to use your boot loader
to boot your other system, and you wouldn't be posting here if you
really wanted to do that.

--
R. T. Bumby **  Rutgers Math || Amer. Math. Monthly Problems Editor 1992--1996

Telephone:    [USA] 732-445-0277 (full-time message line) FAX 732-445-5530

spake unto us, saying:

Quote:>Does anyone have experience using System Commander vs Boot Manager vs
>Lilo.  Which of the 3 would you recommend to boot multiple os's.

Sure.  It really depends on which OSes you want to boot, and on which
of the above you already have.  :-)

For example, I don't think either LILO or Boot Manager is capable of
booting Solaris from one's second hard drive, but System Commander will
allow such a configuration.

System Commander, however, isn't free.

--

     OS/2 + Linux + BeOS + FreeBSD + Solaris + WinNT4 + Win95 + DOS
      + VMWare + Fusion + vMac + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven! :-)
               ...first, we assume a spherical horse...

It depends upon what you mean by multiple. If you just want to move from
Win to Win+Linux, then System Commander is probably not needed. But some
combinations can be tricky. System Commander has an excellent manual
giving lots of useful info, as well as a reliable product. Another thing
to think about is Partition Magic which allows hot repartitioning (being
reckless, I have tried it, successfully, without backing up).

--
John Scholes

I highly recommend both. I use System Commander to boot WIN98, MS-DOS 5.0,
PC-DOS 6.1, OS2 Warp 4, and Linux. These OSes span 2 hard drives and with
System Commander non-boot partitions can be selectively seen by the boot
OS. The latest PM seems very reliable and has saved me a lot of time.

Peter Stein

A not so trivial detail that you don't mention is that Winux hides the
other drives from use! Many folks will find this completely unacceptable
as they routinely access partitions on other drives which belong to
another OS. System Commander can hide partitions for a fraction of the
cost.

This product doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. For $89 you tie
up a 5.25" bay with something that is inflexible in how it permits
access to partitions. Only the most simplistic configuration offers a
feint rationale for Winux, but even then it doesn't make sense because
the combination of System Commander and Partition Magic gives the user
more capabilities for less $.

For less than $89 you can get both System Commander and Partition Magic.
System Commander has a lot of slick features such as controlling how
partitions are seen and being able to boot multiple OSes from the same
partition. Partition Magic is very handy for painless repartitioning.
I used to be a skeptic of PM, but the latest version is very good and
at its low price it's worth having in one's toolbox.

Peter Stein