Vista, Debian, and Grub. Dual boot question.

xiqtem · 09-08-2008, 10:26 AM

I am not a complete newb, but I have not mastered Grub. I just built a new pc. Usually I run with Mepis and XP. Mepis is a Debian derivative. I wanted to do a dual boot with Debian and Vista. I have been hearing that Vista doesn't play nice with other OS's. I have Vista installed and plan on putting Debian on the same sata drive with Grub in the MBR. This is a pretty common configuration I would think. So Has anyone done this and does it work as well as it did with XP?

JimBass · 09-08-2008, 10:33 AM

First, try searching. This gets asked frequently.

I have a laptop with vista and Debian. It works fine. As long as Vista is the first install, it behaves exactly the same as XP for dual booting purposes. Just like XP, it is far easier to have Vista on the drive first, then shrink its partition and add in any linux. The grub installation will detect Vista, add an entry in the grub menu for it, and all is good.

Peace,
JimBass