Ever thought about setting up a dual boot Linux / Windows system? does the thought of crossing over to an ever growing operating system scare you, but your sick of blue screens and constant unstability? Here is the chance to keep Windows* on your computer and learn Linux at the same time, so that if you find Linux hard to handle you can go back to the boooring and mundane life of a Windows user.
Please note I am assuming that you have some experience installing Linux, if not please be sure to read up on all the docs and make back ups of everything before trying this. Remember installing something like this will mean no recovery of old data - and I take no responsibility for any of your mistakes :]
I did this install on my laptop, the hard disk is 11.5gb, the operating systems I used were windows xp and slackware linux v8.1, but your not restricted to those, live dangerously, pick and choose. Installing a dual boot system simplified:
The first thing I did was make a Windows partition (the c: drive) and a single extended partition (the D: drive), I will now go into detail on how I did this for people who are unsure:
Boot up your computer (with a fresh hard disk - ie. nothing loaded) using a boot disk, I use a Windows 98 boot disk and select not to boot with cdrom support.
When you reach the a:\ prompt type 'fdisk' without including the ''. This will bring up a whole heap of text asking if you want to enable large hard disk support, answer yes and then you will be brought to a menu.
Select the first option (1) from the menu and then select (1) again to create your primary space - when the check is done answer (n) to whether you should use the whole disk and set it bootable.
Then you set the size you want for your primary partition - this is where Windows will sit. on my hard disk I used 3gb.
Once this is done you will end up back to the original menu, again select (1) and then select (2) from the next menu - this will create the extended partition. on my system I sized this at 2gb which leaves 6.5gb for the Linux install.
Next step once your back to the main fdisk menu is to select (2) and set C: as the bootable partition, once you have done that exit fdisk and install Windows - get comfy grab quite a few glasses of coffee and plan your Linux install.
With the Windows install all done I rebooted and checked to make sure that the windows install was working and I formatted my D: drive. once completed I went on to the Linux install.
On my laptop it will boot from either floppy or cdrom - you may have to change your settings if you booted from a floppy for the first part, so go into your bios and change so that it boots from the cd.
Stick the Slackware cd in the cd drive and restart - this will start the install - text will scroll across your screen, when it stops have a good read then log in as 'root'
I use cfdisk to partition my Linux drive and the partitions I create are as follows:
swap (400mb, usually double your memory)
/ (root, 1000mb and set as bootable)
/usr (binaries etc, 3000mb)
/var (logs, system files etc, 400mb)
/tmp (temporary stuff, 40mb)
/home (home, whatever space is left over)
For this particular install I only included a minimal amount of partitions, you can add more if you like or remove some to suit your needs. As you can see i am very generous in my partition sizes, but this is what I like to do is add on alot of applications and things as I go on through my daily workings with Linux
There are many reasons for having partitions like such on Linux or UNIX, the reason I partition like this is because its easy to upgrade and you can keep track of everything that is going on, issuing the 'df' command gives a listing of partitions and how much space is left - if you didnt have any partitions its hard to keep track of things.
Once the partitioning is done, the Slackware install allows you to format the partitions and select what they will be (ie. /, /home, /usr etc).
The Slackware install will then ask you a few questions about install media and what type of install you want to do, I always use the menu install as I can choose what I want installed and what I dont want - you may use something different, but this choice is upto you.
For me the next half an hour was pick and choose what I wanted to install. After that is done your asked a few questions about lilo (linux loader), this part is important as it will allow the dual boot - I chose the default settings for lilo and let it automatically install (more on this later) and when the option came I installed it to the mbr (master boot record) so it becomes the default operating system loader. Finish off your settings and pick a root password - now its time to reboot and see how it all went.
After rebooting and the computer going through its processes you will get a lilo boot menu - it will have dos, linux and os2. You will probably be saying "hey I didnt install os2!" but this is part of that default lilo setting we did in the Linux install (we get to edit that out later). Arrow down, select 'Linux' and hit enter. With a bit of luck Linux will now load and after the text scrolls you will get the login prompt - log in as root and type the password you set for root during the install.
The first thing I do is make a new user account by using the 'adduser' command. After doing that I log out of root and log in using my new account, and test everything such as 'su' and 'startx', then I reboot and load windows to see if everything is running sweet on there. If all is fine I then reboot the system and log back into Linux and then to the final step of the dual boot journey, editing lilo.conf.
If your not logged in as root use the 'su' command to become root. For ease of use I chose pico as the text editor, type 'pico /etc/lilo.conf' and that opens up the lilo.conf file - if you scroll towards the bottom you will see the following:
# DOS bootable partition config begins
label = DOS
table = /dev/hda
# DOS bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda7
label = Linux
read only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# OS/2 bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hda1
label = OS2
table = /dev/hda
# OS/2 bootable partition config ends
The changes that I made follow:
# DOS bootable partition config begins
(i changed DOS to WinXP - you can change this to whatever you like)
label = WinXP
table = /dev/hda
# DOS bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda7
label = Linux
read only
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# OS/2 bootable partition config begins
(I commented out the whole of OS2 because its not installed and is redundant code)
#other = /dev/hda1
# label = OS2
# table = /dev/hda
# OS/2 bootable partition config ends
Once that was done I pressed ctrl and x together and saved my changes. The final part to this is to make these changes permanent so I typed '/sbin/lilo' you will see an output of text and if there are no errors your done! reboot the system and you will notice the changes. Thats it - good luck :]
Please note that most Linux distributions now come with the choice of lilo or grub as a boot loader, redhat linux comes with that choice (I am not sure about others) and also allows you to configure either lilo or grub during the install.