07-02-2009
Generally with XP, you need to use the NT Boot Loader or grub. The problem comes from the fact that XP really wants to be the first or second partition, which means there's a chance (if your computer's BIOS is old enough) that the Linux kernel cannot load on the 3rd, 4th or 5th partition. Personally, I find the NT Boot Loader acceptable and easier to install. There are some guides and FAQs out there on how to do this and go into more detail than I can.
First you use a live/rescue cd to partition your drive. You'll need one NTFS/FAT32 partition, three linux partitions with code 83, and one Linux swap partition (82). This is more than 4, so you'll need to create an extended partition. After this, straight away, install XP. Now go back and install Linux, but DO NOT have them install a boot loader on the MBR (the disks' master boot record) -- Instead, either use a boot disk or install the boot sector on each local partition. (Also, if possible, for simplicity, avoid using LVM - linux volume management). Let the two Linux installations share a single /boot image. You can boot into XP and configure the NTFS loader to "chain load" into your /boot partition, which will then run grub and let you select one of the other two operating systems. (Or, each linux installation has a /boot directory -- not in its own partition, and grub is configured for each partition independently).
10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting
1. Filesystems, Disks and Memory
Hello! im having a hard time installing Slackware 9 on my 20GB hard drive.
it boots "bare.i" all the way until detecting partitions on my hard drive, hanging like this
yet, vector linux (kernel 2.4.18) and my old redhat (2.2.12-10) work fine? oh though it does cause a boot delay if i... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: supafluous
0 Replies
2. Solaris
I have two disks on a sun blade 100. I just installed a solaris8 on the first disk. The installation was successful. But the problem is now I lost all data / partition on my second hard disk.
The possible reason could be:
1. I used default web start install. During the installation I didn't... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: motor98
2 Replies
3. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
Host 1
-------
Part Tag Flag Cylinders Size Blocks
0 root wm 0 - 1911 18.56GB (1912/0/0) 38913024
1 swap wu 1912 - 5434 34.19GB (3523/0/0) 71700096
2 backup wm 0 - 14086 136.71GB ... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: sriny
5 Replies
4. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
I want to modify a predefined partition on Solaris. This predefined partion has 51 GB. I want to partition it as two partition. One is 5G, another one is about
46 GB. I want to use these commands:
#format
specify disk
#partition
# modify
The system told me that ' Cannot modify disk... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: duke0001
1 Replies
5. Solaris
I have X4500 running Solaris 10. I have formatted a disk and created partition table as given below.
Specify disk (enter its number): 0
selecting c0t0d0
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 is part of active ZFS pool zpool1. Please see zpool(1M).
FORMAT MENU:
disk - select a disk
... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: bharu_sri
3 Replies
6. Solaris
I'm manually editing the partition table purely for experimenting. I did
prtvtoc /dev/dsk/c1t0d0s2 > /tmp/prtvtoc
I'm trying to split up partition 5 to make partition 6. I'm running into a cylinder boundary error on partition 6. Any clues?
# vi /tmp/prtvtoc
"/tmp/prtvtoc" 23 lines, 769... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: adelsin
1 Replies
7. SCO
hi
How can I backup MBR an Partition Table of SCO 5.0.6? (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: ccc
7 Replies
8. Red Hat
Hi,
I need to mount the device from this device
# fdisk -l
.
.
.
Disk /dev/sdas: 2000.4 GB, 2000365289472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243197 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: justbow
0 Replies
9. Ubuntu
Memory card partition table got corrupted after unsafe removal.
Is there any possible recovery ?..
If i list using fdisk
fdisk -l
root@ubuntu:/usr/arm-fsl-linux-gnueabi/arm-fsl-linux-gnueabi/multi-libs# fdisk -l /dev/sdc
Disk /dev/sdc: 3965 MB, 3965190144 bytes
122 heads, 62... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: roonie
2 Replies
10. Programming
Hello,
I have a database called "audit_database" and I want to create two tables.
Table 1 = Table 1
Table 2 = Audit
I want to partition the Audit table into partitions grouped by month. I'm not familiar with table partitioning but doing some reading online shows that it can be done but... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: bbbngowc
4 Replies
LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN
linux::distribution
Linux::Distribution(3pm) User Contributed Perl Documentation Linux::Distribution(3pm)
NAME
Linux::Distribution - Perl extension to detect on which Linux distribution we are running.
SYNOPSIS
use Linux::Distribution qw(distribution_name distribution_version);
if(my $distro = distribution_name) {
my $version = distribution_version();
print "you are running $distro, version $version
";
} else {
print "distribution unknown
";
}
Or else do it OO:
use Linux::Distribution qw(distribution_name distribution_version);
my $linux = Linux::Distribution->new;
if(my $distro = $linux->distribution_name()) {
my $version = $linux->distribution_version();
print "you are running $distro, version $version
";
} else {
print "distribution unknown
";
}
DESCRIPTION
This is a simple module that tries to guess on what linux distribution we are running by looking for release's files in /etc. It now looks
for 'lsb-release' first as that should be the most correct and adds ubuntu support. Secondly, it will look for the distro specific files.
It currently recognizes slackware, debian, suse, fedora, redhat, turbolinux, yellowdog, knoppix, mandrake, conectiva, immunix, tinysofa,
va-linux, trustix, adamantix, yoper, arch-linux, libranet, gentoo, ubuntu, scientific, oracle enterprise linux and redflag.
It has function to get the version for debian, suse, fedora, redhat, gentoo, slackware, scientific, oracle enterprise linux, redflag and
ubuntu(lsb). People running unsupported distro's are greatly encouraged to submit patches :-)
EXPORT
None by default.
TODO
Add the capability of recognize the version of the distribution for all recognized distributions.
AUTHORS
Alexandr Ciornii <alexchorny@gmail.com>, <http://chorny.net> Alberto Re, <alberto@accidia.net> Judith Lebzelter, <judith@osdl.org>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.5 or,
at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.
perl v5.14.2 2012-03-18 Linux::Distribution(3pm)