I habe:

Linux Redhat
Linux Manrake
Windows XP
And wish to install other later on.

I want to multiboot with XP as the primary boot.

What it the best way to have all these running. When i installed redhat, it came with the grub loader (or somthing like that) and it worked fine, it was simple to use and booted XP as well as redhat. Now i installed Mandrake but it installed Lilo and it makes it all shitty. I have to click on Windows NT to get XP and its set to defult on windows, when there is not windows installed.

Whats the best way?

Hi,
I don't know what the BEST way is, but this is how I triple boot
98SE, RH8 and MDK9:

40 gig drive:
hda1 10gig 98SE (c: drive)
hda2 extended
-hda5 10gig Redhat
-hda8 10gig Mandrake
-hda6 10gig win (d: Drive)
-hda7 1gig swap (shared RH & MDK)
(approx sizes)

loaded 98 first.
loaded mandrake next - BUT, put Lilo in -hda8
loaded redhat with Grub in mbr with an extra
entry pointing to hda8.
In lilo, set Mandrake to default and time to zero
for instant boot.

This setup may not be very elegent but it allows for
replacement of the second OS, in this case Mandrake,
without having to change anything in the RH Grub
(except maybe the label)

Hope this helps

Are you unhappy at Windows Xp showing up as Windows NT in the lilo label, go to /etc/lilo.conf and change the label from Windows NT to Windows XP. This is nothing to be worried about, lilo sees the NTFS partition and assumes it to be NT.

About the other labe "windows" showing up. Do you have 2 physical HDDs with at least one FAT32 primary partition in the second HDD. ?

-Manas

One more thing, I forgot to add this.

You can make the changes I mentioned above using the Mandrake control center.
In that case you dont have to edit the /etc/lilo.conf. ( if you are new to linux better avoid editing config files whenever possible)

ok, so edit config..but where is that located? If i can access that i can edit most of it to make it how i want it.

But can i also set lilo to boot Redhat as well?

I do have a 512mb backup drive, so thats probably what it wants to boot under windows. i am planning on installing windows NT anway as i need it for my server course. So i can edit the conf file so i get everything set up how i want it?

/et6c/lilo.conf as he already said. twice.

my bad.

Yes now its starting to pull together nicely and i can start the redhat boot but it gets to this error:

Kernal panic: No init found. try passing init = option to kernal.

now i know that i am meant to specify an address for this init when i set it up, but i have no idear what location to set it upto for redhat. I have played around with trying different ones. But i just dont know.
I cant reinsall redhat which was my next plan as my cdrom doesnt like to read from the redhat disks. And it also seemed to destroy my mandrake disk 2 as wel. Now its got a big crack in it. What luck.

You are not alone. I'm having a similar problem mine is an AMD XP1800, 256Mb PC2100 DDR, 60 Gig HD. I put
20gig hda1=Win98SE
19.5gig hda2=Redhat7.2
19.5gig hda3=Mandrake 8.2
1gig hda4=Linux Swap (shared RH & Mandy)
I used Grub bootloader from Redhat disk installed in this order Win98SE, Mandy 8.2 (without any bootloader), Redhat 7.2 with GRUB bootloader. During install Grub didn't find my Mandy install so I tried to edit Grub.conf file and still can't get Mandy to boot. My workaround is this Boot PC choose Redhat or Win98SE from menu boot into OS of choice if I want to use Mandy then I pop in Mandy bootdisk and reboot. Do I need to install LILO on the mandy partition as auslew said? The box works now but it is a bit annoying I just haven't had much time to work on it lately.

I didn't want to start another thread as we might both learn together.

Bubba169

Can you please post the contents of the grub.conf or lilo.conf file ??

starting with the boot part

#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout-10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat 7.2 (2.4.7-10)
. root (hd0.1)
. kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.7-10 ro root=/dev/hda2 hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi
. initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.7-10.img
title WIN98SE
. rootnoverify (hd0,0)
. chainloader +1
title Mandrake 8.2
. root (hd0,1)
. kernel /boot/vwlinuz-2.4.18-6mdk ro root=/dev/hda5 hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi
. initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-6mdk.img

The Mandrake part I added but the Win98SE & redhat 7.2 part were done by the installer, they both work. I used the redhat part as a guide so I don't know how bad I screwed it up. When GRUB boots Mandrake I get this error

Booting 'Mandrake 8.2'

root (hd0,1)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-6mdk ro root=/dev/hda5 hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi

error 15: File not found

Press any key to continue....


I believe it isn't finding the kernel but I really don't know how to fix it.

Bubba169

OK /dev/hda3 was setup for Mandrake I let the installer partition it the way it wanted to so /dev/hda5 is the / partition of Mandrake 8.2so it's like this

/dev/hda
-hda1 Fat32 (for Windows)
-hda2 ext3 for (RedHat 7.2)
-hda3 extended
-hda5 ext3 (for Mandrake 8.2)
-hda4 linux swap (shared for RH & Mandy)

I'm not sure were I went wrong but you need any other info let me know.

Thanks to all

Bubba169

heh, i got redhat 8 and mandrake 9 so it makes it a bit diferent.

I managed to get passed the kernal error, but a hell of allot of failed appeared after it.

i just had to guess the name of the image file, but then it cant find another one which causes all the errors.

So i am eventually getting there, just need to find out the rest of the information about redhat.
I don;t see why i use redhat now i got mandrake. I can access all 6 of my NTFS partitions in mandrake as well as my fat32. Not somthing redhat can do.
So now i dont have to double up on all my mps's, yay

bubba !!

Make a little change ...

*********
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout-10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat 7.2 (2.4.7-10)
. root (hd0,1)
. kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.7-10 ro root=/dev/hda2 hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi
. initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.7-10.img
title WIN98SE
. rootnoverify (hd0,0)
. chainloader +1
title Mandrake 8.2
. root (hd0,2) #### bubba look at this line, its got to be (hd0,x) Try different numbers other that what is already used for WIn98 and Redhat ####
. kernel /boot/vwlinuz-2.4.18-6mdk ro root=/dev/hda5 hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi
. initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-6mdk.img
*********

I'm away right now but I will try it as soon as I can. I'll post back and update progress. I didn't know that about (hd0.2) either.

What is the difference in RH 8.0 & Mandy 9.0 as cummings was saying?

Personally I feel that Mandrake is alot easier & newbie friendly but I like Redhat better, just my opinion.

Thanks

Bubba169

Just my .02, but here is my grub config file (menu.lst). It boots SuSE 8.0 & 8.1, and Win98 (and some rescue options as well).

It's not obvious, but my SuSE 8.0 resides on /dev/hdc5 and 8.1 lives on /dev/hdc9. Grub apparently ignores CD & DVD drives and counts only the actual hard drives. This would explain why /dev/hdc ended up as hd1.

(My drive layout is hard drive #1, CD, hard drive #2, DVD)

Or better yet, just take a look in /boot/grub/device/map to see how your drives are mapped.


And the partition number that you are actually using would be 1 more than what is reported here (nothing like consistancy...) So hd1,8 is actually /dev/hdc9 on my machine.

The good news is that grub is happy using either method of identifying a partition, notice that I also use the old /dev/hdc9 format mixed in with the new style.

Now that we've got that straight, take a look at how I've got the actual partition path as part of the kernel location. This is what you are going to need to do for each of your kernels (i.e. one for Mandrake, one for Redhat, etc...)

"kernel (hd1,8)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc9"

is really

"/dev/hdc9/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc9"

which gives grub both the name and the location of the kernel (vmlinuz, on /dev/hdc9) and where root is going to be. Notice that I do the same thing for initrd. You might not need this line if your distro doesn't use initrd.

And you don't absolutely have to have the "/dev/hd??" preceeding the kernel as long as all of your kernels reside in the same directory (with different names of course). But this is the sure road to madness and I would strongly recommend that you leave the kernels where each distro installed them and just make sure that the path includes the drive and partition.


Ignore the "hdb=ide..." line, it's for Xcdroast.

Once you finish editing /boot/grub/menu.lst (did you make sure to save the old file as "menu.lst.old" first? If not, do so.) save the file and as root, run:

"grub-install /dev/hda"

Wait, this takes awhile...

Did it finish up without any error messages? If not, post them here.

So the upshot of all this is leave your kernels where your distro installed them, edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to make sure that your entries point to these locations, run "grub-install /dev/hda" as root.


Enjoy,


John



Here's my menu.lst file:

gfxmenu (hd1,8)/boot/message
color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8

title SuSE8.1
kernel (hd1,8)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc9 hdb=ide-scsi vga=791
initrd (hd1,8)/boot/initrd
title SuSE8.0
kernel (hd1,4)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc5 hdb=ide-scsi vga=791
initrd (hd1,4)/boot/initrd
title windows
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
title floppy
root (fd0)
chainloader +1
title failsafe
kernel (hd1,8)/boot/vmlinuz.shipped root=/dev/hdc9 ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off vga=normal nosmp maxcpus=0 disableapic 3
initrd (hd1,8)/boot/initrd.shipped