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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!newshost.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!vic.news.telstra.net!news.mira.net.au!Germany.EU.net!Austria.EU.net!EU.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!boulder!usenet From: rsmith@psych.colorado.edu (Roderick W. Smith) Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.setup.win95,comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,de.comp.os.os2.setup Subject: Boot managers for W95/DOS/Win311 and OS/2 and FreeBSD/Linux Date: 4 Apr 1996 04:08:32 GMT Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Lines: 59 Message-ID: <4jvi00$pmo@lace.colorado.edu> References: <4jv7ia$t5o@fu-berlin.de> Reply-To: rsmith@psych.colorado.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: tele-anx0122.colorado.edu X-Newsreader: NeoLogic News for OS/2 [version: 4.5 YO Beta] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.ms-windows.setup.win95:6602 comp.os.os2.setup.misc:12172 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:16665 In message <4jv7ia$t5o@fu-berlin.de> - axl@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Axel Thimm)Thu, 04 Apr 1996 02:11:37 GMT writes: > > Hello, > I'd like to know more about how to manage multiple OSes on my PC. Are > there any FAQs for partitions/MBRs and booting sequences and for the > available boot managers? I'd like to configure my system as general as > possible and would like to prevent some mistakes beforehand. I don't know of any FAQs specifically on boot managers, but this topic is covered to a greater or lesser extent in one or more FAQs for many specific OSes. I'm familiar with OS/2, Linux, and DOS. There may be additional quirks with other OSes, and of course other OSes may have other boot utilities; but I'd suggest this: 1) With those three OSes, use OS/2's Boot Manager as the main boot utility. This requires setting aside a separate 1MB primary partition on your first physical disk. Normally this isn't a big deal, since most OSes (DOS and Win95 being exceptions) can boot from extended/logical partitions just fine. 2) Again with these OSes, use LILO as a secondary boot utility for Linux only (Linux requires either this or using a floppy to boot Linux). LILO is therefore installed on the *Linux* partition, not on the disk's MBR. 3) Install Linux and OS/2 on extended/logical partitions. DOS (or Win95) must go on a primary, and often on the first physical disk (this apparently varies from version to version). 4) Partition the disk so that ascending drive letters (as seen from DOS or OS/2) use filesystems with less generality -- that is, put all FAT partitions before all HPFS partitions, since DOS can't see HPFS without special drivers; and put Linux ext2 partitions after both FAT and HPFS partitions, since neither DOS nor OS/2 can see ext2 without special drivers. This keeps drive lettering consistent between OSes (for those which use drive letters; Linux doesn't, for instance). 5) In general, it's best to use the FDISK program for a given OS to create any partition(s) that are to be used primarily with that OS. One exception I know of: Use OS/2's FDISK to create your Linux partitions; OS/2 seems to occasionally get confused by partitions created by at least some versions of Linux's fdisk. 6) Format any partitions that are to become boot partitions from OS/2 before formatting them something else. OS/2 will sometimes refuse to add partitions to Boot Manager if they've not been formatted from OS/2. (You can reformat them to another filesystem later.) > Axel Thimm <axl@zedat.fu-berlin.de> > Freie Universitaet Berlin > === > --Rod Smith RSMITH@PSYCH.COLORADO.EDU http://psych.colorado.edu/~rsmith