Very Computer

Can someone point me to a web site or newsgroup where I can get
information on optimizing a system for multiple operations systems?

I have System Commander and I want to install Linux, Windows 98, Windows
NT4, and a couple of other operating systems on a single system.

I'd like some information on what the best way is to go about it
(partitioning hints, special settings, etc.).

Thanks!

--Dave

Decide whether you want multiple C: drives which can't normally see each
other.  Note that the BIOS of a machine limits boot up files to the
first 1024? cylinders of your system and don't have a boot partition
pass this.

Do a lot of backups and test your backup/restore from floppy with each
OS.

With System Commander, you will get warnings when you change your boot
settings.  Make sure you understand them ahead of time.  Basically it
copies boot files around then boots up your OS.

[Posted and mailed]

Quote:> Can someone point me to a web site or newsgroup where I can get
> information on optimizing a system for multiple operations systems?

> I have System Commander and I want to install Linux, Windows 98, Windows
> NT4, and a couple of other operating systems on a single system.

> I'd like some information on what the best way is to go about it
> (partitioning hints, special settings, etc.).

I don't know of any single site that covers all these topics. You can
glean a lot of information from assorted Linux HOWTO documents, though,
and from the System Commander manual. FAQs for various other OSs also
contain information (there's something in an NT FAQ I once read about
using NT's OS Loader to boot other OSs, for instance, but I don't have a
URL handy). If you're willing to wait ~2.5-3 months, you can buy my book
on the subject, which I've recently finished writing and is now going
through the production process. I just checked, and it's listed on
Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789722836/roderwsmithshome

There's also some information on Macmillan's web site; go to
http://www.mcp.com and search on "Roderick Smith" to find it (their web
site design makes it difficult to link directly to information on specific
books, I'm afraid).

I'll probably put up my own web page with a table of contents and other
information in the next week or two; try checking my web page at
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~smithrod to see when that information
goes up.

--

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~smithrod
Author of books on Linux networking & WordPerfect for Linux

About multiple Operating Systems:

The RedHat site has links to documentation for linux, the
MiniHOWTo's answer your questions, or at least part of them.

I have OS/2, WinNT4 and Linux all working separately on one hard
drive without problems.  OS/2's Boot Manager selects which to boot:
If NT, then NT's loader selects the main NT or the maintenance
partition; if linux, it goes to Lilo to boot that. If System
Commander sees all the partitions, and accepts them all on separate
partitions, why not?  I made the partitions in Partition Magic,
though that may not work with Solaris or BE, it does see Linux
partitions.

Quote:>Can someone point me to a web site or newsgroup where I can get
>information on optimizing a system for multiple operations systems?
>I have System Commander and I want to install Linux, Windows 98,
>Windows  NT4, and a couple of other operating systems on a single
>system.
>I'd like some information on what the best way is to go about it
>(partitioning hints, special settings, etc.).
>Thanks!
>--Dave

Judith Russell      

Saugus Web Coordinator
http://www.hart.k12.ca.us/saugus

Quote:

> About multiple Operating Systems:

> The RedHat site has links to documentation for linux, the
> MiniHOWTo's answer your questions, or at least part of them.

> I have OS/2, WinNT4 and Linux all working separately on one hard
> drive without problems.  OS/2's Boot Manager selects which to boot:
> If NT, then NT's loader selects the main NT or the maintenance
> partition; if linux, it goes to Lilo to boot that. If System
> Commander sees all the partitions, and accepts them all on separate
> partitions, why not?  I made the partitions in Partition Magic,
> though that may not work with Solaris or BE, it does see Linux
> partitions.

Thanks.  I'm contacting both V systems and PowerQuest about their boot
products.

I have installed two physical hard drives into the system.  I'm
installing Windows NT4, Windows 98, and Caldera DOS on the C: drive.  
I'll install RedHat Linux on the second physical drive.

What I need is a boot manager that will allow me to boot from a drive
other than C:

I'm using a FAT16 boot partition on the C: drive with a FAT32 secondary
partition.  I have a device driver for Windows NT that will allow it to
read FAT32 partitions so that I can see data in both partitions with both
operating systems.

I was told by the RedHat salesperson that RedHat supports FAT32
partitions, so it can read the physical C: drive just fine.

I'll post a message to let everyone know how things went.

--Dave

Quote:> I'll probably put up my own web page with a table of contents and other
> information in the next week or two; try checking my web page at
> http://members.bellatlantic.net/~smithrod to see when that information
> goes up.

Thanks Rod!  I've bookmarked your site.

I can't wait that long, but I'll definitely add your book to my "wish
list".

--Dave

Hi,
I recommend the product called TRIOS. This is a perfect hardware solution
for multiple operating systems.
Please check www.romtecusa.com for more information.
I'm using Windows98 and Corel Linux Deluxe in one PC now.
If you have any questios, please let me know.
Good luck!

--
Posted via CNET Help.com
http://www.help.com/

LILO for Linux will do that.  You can set it up to boot to a default
system after a timeout, in the interim you can pick your system.

--
    Chuck Falconer

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Check out the Linux+NT mini-Howto, from your local LDP site.

Quote:

> I have System Commander and I want to install Linux, Windows 98, Windows
> NT4, and a couple of other operating systems on a single system.

I've heard good things about System commander, but used the Power Quest
gear ie Partiton Magic 4, PQ BootMagic.

Currently running  Win98/NT 4, BeOS, Redhat6.1 and FreeBSD 3.2 (is this
excesive?...), on the one machine, with two hardrives. One on the Primary
master, hda,(6.4GB) and the second on the secondary master, hdc,(8.4GB)
with the CD-ROM device (bootable) on the primary slave, hdb. Don't
currently have a  floppy connected at the moment, with the LS-120 on
secondary slave (hdd) which is the reason why I haven't got Solaris for
intel installed as yet... haven't thought about OS2 ;]

I must first say, the way I went about this, was quick, initially easy, and
workable-'enough'. It is most certainly not the cheapest/best/most
researched way this operation could have been undertaken. In the future I
hope to releave my dependency on commercial software for the Win32
platform.

Firstly,  I installed Win95. Booting off a Win95floppy,  got rid of all my
partions (after a thorough backup), and then made a small (1GB) FAT 16
partition at the start of hda. With this I installed Win95 aka OS 1.

I then installed BeOS. This was my first experience  with BeOS, and seeing
I wasn't too worried about losing Win95, I decided to give it a go. The
BeOS CD is bootable, so I just jiggered a bit in my BIOS
boot: CDROM, C, A
and rebooted. <mindless BeOS plug> BeOS's disk/partitioning tools aren't to
bad, and the installation went rather well, </end plug> with a 2GB BeOS
partion after my FAT, with the BeOS boot at this partition. BeOS aka
OS....... 2. (no pun intended)

With this, I installed the latest version of partition magic (4.0),  and
PQ Boot. With partition magic, I started carving up the partitions.

hda1    DOS FAT 16    1GB
hda2    BeOS fs            2GB
hda4    unformatted    (later to become a BSD partion, / )    600MB
hda5    Linux                (later to become /var)    300MB
hda6    Linux swap       160 MB
hda7    Linux                (later to become /boot)    60 MB
hda8    NTFS                2GB

hdc2    unformatted    (later to become a BSD partition, /usr/ )    1.9GB
hdc3    unformatted    (later to become a BSD partition, swap)    160MB
hdc4    DOS FAT 16    2GB
hdc5    Linux                (later to become /usr/local)    1.6GB
hdc6    Linux                (later to become /)       1.9GB

Things to note
    The linux boot partion is in the 1024 cylinders of the first drive.
    The Free BSD boot partition (/ for my system) is also in the first 1024
cylinders of the first drive.
    The NTFS is on the first 7.8GB of the bootable drive.

Also
    Don't know if Win9x will have an issue if it's not the first partition.

I then copied the Win98(upgrade only) and WinNT 4 CD's to the dos partition
on the second drive (for convinience, hate having to put the CD in every
day), hdc4 (or D: under dos...x   Win95). From there I installed Win98 off
the second hardrive, OS 3, and then WinNT, with it's ever merciless boot
loader, OS 4. After many reboot's, installing of drivers off several CD's
for drivers for my hardware, I was ready to install something descent.
<rant>Note: Linux might not have as much official support as it, as some of
the OS's out there, but having to install specific drivers off about a
dozen CD's!!! I wouldn't call that easy, or more user friendly. I'd rather
hack a kernel, compile it, and then only have to reboot once!</rant>

FreeBSD 3.2  intel CD is bootable, drop it in, and let it go :-). The only
CD's I couldn't boot off were (this is true, and came as quite a shock to
myself...) Win95, 98 and NT 4... reminds me <anonymous sig> " I heard if
you play the Windows NT 4 CD backwards, it plays back Satanic messages!".
"That's nothing. I heard if you play it forward, it installs windows NT
4!!!!!!!" </sig> (and boy!, wasn't NT 3.51 great.... cough, cough )

Free BSD is more unix-lke with it's install, like debian, so if your a
newbie, you want to take things slowly with freeBSD, and read all the
installation screens very carefully ( like I didn't the first time I
installed it, but made sure I did the second time round...).  OS 5.

Ahhhh.... Linux time..... Win9x/NT, most people are familiar with, BeOS
looks pretty, FreeBSD looks solid, complete, and something I'd like to get
into one day, but Linux, has charisma, and a nice homely feeling about it.
Installing RedHat 6.1 wasn't to much trouble, make sure, you've made sure,
that you don't install the LILO in the MBR, or you'll have to reinstall/(or
be a smarter person then me! easily enough done). OS 6, but by my personal
opinion, OS no 1. (for me anyway, cheers to you if you disagree, 'why not
flame you house? ;-P ')

I then went back into windows, setup PQ boot magic up, wrote it to the MBR,
and rebooted.

All up, took about five hours, installing the OS's (and the *y Win9x/NT
drivers, probably the longest part), and, it's a success! BTW, get a copy
of VMware, and you won't have to reboot to use Win9x/NT.

Quote:> I'd like some information on what the best way is to go about it
> (partitioning hints, special settings, etc.).

Hope my example helps, or offers food for thought anyway. After looking at
what I've written, I'm sure it's not the best way to go about this,  but
since my RSI is getting to me, I think I'll let someone  else fill you in
on my short comings.

Quote:

> Thanks!

> --Dave

Stephen

So will the OS/2 Boot Manager.  The disadvantage to BootMan is that it
takes up a primary partition all of its own, and since you're limited to 4
primaries (and Windows 95/98 will want one) you're left with two primary
partitions.  BootMan will handle just about anything though, NT, OS/2,
LILO, Dos, Windows, et al.

 > >--

--
===========
Mike Trettel    trettel (Shift 2) fred (dinky little round thing) net

I don't buy from spammers.  No exceptions.  Fix the reply line to mail me.

says...

Quote:> I recommend the product called TRIOS. This is a perfect hardware solution
> for multiple operating systems.
> Please check www.romtecusa.com for more information.
> I'm using Windows98 and Corel Linux Deluxe in one PC now.
> If you have any questios, please let me know.

Thanks, but I don't want to isolate all of the operating systems from
each other.

Since I am using a 28.5 gig drive and a 20.4 gig drive in the system, I
want to share data space between the operating systems.

--Dave

But what difference does it make if there are only 4 primary
partitions?  NT, OS/2 and Linux don't need a primary partition. Dos
does, I assume. And you said Win9x does, which I know little about.
I think Boot Manager is pretty good and IIRC,  Solaris will boot
from OS/2's Boot Manager also.  PowerQuest's Boot Magic is the same
thing, licensed from IBM.   I've taken it for granted for so long,
cannot imaging being without that.

Judith Russell      

Saugus Web Coordinator
http://www.hart.k12.ca.us/saugus

Quote:

> But what difference does it make if there are only 4 primary
> partitions?  NT, OS/2 and Linux don't need a primary partition. Dos
> does, I assume. And you said Win9x does, which I know little about.

DOS, Windows 9x, Windows NT, FreeBSD, and probably others all require
primary partitions. If you only want to run two of these OSs, the
4-primary limit isn't a big deal. If you want to run three of them, PLUS
Boot Manager, PLUS have logical partitions, then you've chewed up five
primaries (all logical partitions reside in an extended partition
"placeholder" that consumes a primary partition). The only ways to run
such an arrangement are to ditch Boot Manager in favor of another boot
loader or to place multiple primary-requiring OSs on a single partition
(Windows NT's boot loader has some capabilities along these lines, and
could be used as a secondary boot loader to Boot Manager).

Quote:> I think Boot Manager is pretty good and IIRC,  Solaris will boot
> from OS/2's Boot Manager also.  PowerQuest's Boot Magic is the same
> thing, licensed from IBM.   I've taken it for granted for so long,
> cannot imaging being without that.

Untrue (about Boot Magic being the same as Boot Manager). Partition Magic
3.0 shipped with Boot Manager, called that but using a different interface
to set it up. With version 4.0 of Partition Magic, PowerQuest switched to
Boot Magic, which is an entirely different program. Boot Magic does *NOT*
consume a primary partition, but it does require that you have at least
one FAT partition on your system. Partition Magic 5.0 also includes Boot
Magic. PM 4.0 and (I believe) 5.0 can MODIFY EXISTING Boot Manager
partitions, but can't create new ones.

--

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~smithrod
Author of books on Linux networking & WordPerfect for Linux

Solaris, SCO, FreeBSD need a primary.
NT relies on C being available as a primary in FAT16 format.
OS/2 can install into an extended partition, but you have to first install
its boot manager into a primary (but thereafter you don't need it).

--
Thomas E.*ey

http://www.veryComputer.com/

isn't that limited to 4 boots though?  (I've nine with system commander, plus
lilo for the places where it can't reach).

--
Thomas E.*ey

http://www.veryComputer.com/