by Recently, I installed Linux on a friend's new system with Windows 95
OSR2 (which has the FAT32 filesystem). Anyway, this system had a
major hardware failure, and is going to be replaced with a new system
similar to the old one, as mentioned in other posts. Anyway, this
system had two FAT32 partitions (one primary, one logical in extended),
a Linux ext2 partition, and a Linux swap partition. I had no problem
installing the FAT32 patch to make Linux read and write to FAT32
partitions. Also, I had NO problem setting up LILO to boot either the
Linux partition, or the FAT32 partition. I installed LILO on the master
boot record, and simply added the FAT32 partition as if it was a regular
DOS (FAT16) partition. This worked great, and LILO had no problem
booting the FAT32 primary partition. Now, here's what I want to ask.
I have read many posts that say using LILO with a FAT32 partition is
NOT safe. Why is this the case? Is something bad going to happen
eventually if I set up LILO again to boot a FAT32 partition? Today I
upgraded LILO on my Linux system (an old Compaq 486--not the new
system in question) to release 20. I read in the documentation that
came with LILO that it can boot any operating system. The
documentation made no mention of FAT32, or problems using LILO
with it. So, what's the deal here? Is there anything wrong with using
LILO with a FAT32 partition, or is the author of LILO not correct about
his own software? I'm getting a conflict in opinions here. Personally,
I see NOTHING wrong with using LILO to boot a FAT32 partition.
I realize that I could also use loadlin to boot Linux directly from DOS 7
on the FAT32 partition. Also, I know how to use the config.sys boot
menu capability as an OS loader (use shell statement to load loadlin.exe).
Should I just use loadlin instead of LILO to handle the dual boot between
Linux and Windows 95? I'm not a fan of boot disks, so using a boot disk
to boot Linux is not something I'm considering as a perminent way of
setting up the system (I'd only use a LILO boot disk for back up purposes).
I want to know if using loadlin to boot Linux from the FAT32 partition would
give me any advantages over using LILO to boot the both the Linux and
FAT32 partitions. All comments are welcome. Thanks.
