Hello to everybody,

This is my first post, I hope u can help me!

First of all, I'm sorry for my bad english but is not my mother language!

I bought a notebook 10 days ago, this is an Acer Aspire 5100 with Windows Media Center Edition Pre-installed on the System..
So, I love linux and OpenSource and i decided to install my Slackware (10.2 or 11) on this PC..

I've 2 little question:

1) Where have i to install my preferite bootloader LiLO? I read that if i put it into MBR maybe can cause some problem, because Acer "set a little block" on MBR. So, I wanna Made a dual boot (Win - Linux). How?
I ever installed LiLO on MBR.. What I can do?

2) When i have to choose the mouse, what kind of mouse have i to tick? (PS/2? or what else? I use the tauch pad and a little mouse (Skintek mouse))??

I w8 a reply.

Tnx.

Bye

Welcome to LQ

First of all, you must have a bootloader in the MBR in order for the machine to boot, so I would install to the MBR unless you have a bootloader already, in which case, you can install the bootloader to the root sector of a partition, and have your existing bootloader point to that.

About the mouse, I use Slackware 11 on both my desktop, and laptop. When installed on the laptop I ran
and selected Auto for the mouse. Both my touchpad and usb mouse work just fine, aside from the touchpad being a bit sensitive.

Wait for some more replies before doing anything, I am fairly new to this myself.


John

Tnx for the prompt reply.

But ok, i can install on the root partition my LiLO, but how to made hda bootable and made the dual boot? Help me, I've no idea how to do it!

Tnx
Bye

Well, it depends. Is Windows on the first partition of the hard drive? If it is then there should be no problem getting it to work. If not, however, it is a little tricker but still possible.

Have you already installed Slackware, but didn't install the bootloader?

Tnx br0,

I've not installed Slackware on my notebook.
I've 2 partitions at the moment.

Acer System (Windows Media Center)
Acer Data

Maybe the first partition is Win..

So, what have i to do? Please help me!



C ya

OK, First you must install Slackware, after Slackware is installed you will be offered some options about the bootloader install. It is probably best to let Slackware set up the lilo configuration. You will be asked where you want to install the bootloader. You should install to the MBR (it may say this is possibly unsafe, but if you don't install it here, you won't be able to boot Slackware without a boot disk). If Windows is on the first partition, which is where it likes to be, there should be no problems. So you should now have Slackware installed and lilo installed on /dev/sda. Now you reboot, after POST, lilo will appear, it will be ugly, but you can change this later. You should have at least two options, Windows, and Linux. Try booting each of them, if they boot then you have done everything correctly and then the fun begins.

If you are very new to Linux, expect reinstalls, you will probably screw up. It's a pain, but you really do learn a lot.


Good luck

John

Br0, I've already installed a linux distro (slackware) on my pcs but never on notebook. My question is:

1) How to install LiLO on Root Partition and make it bootable and at the end made a dual boot?

I hope you can help me!

Tnx for the time spent to help me.. I'm a newbie

Take a peep at the last link of my signature.

If you want Lilo in the root partition follow Task D3. You have to understand a boot loader inside a root partition doesn't boot. It is the one in the MBR that does.

My guess is you must have read somewhere about using Windows to boot Slackware and it can only do so if Lilo is in the root partition. That is perfectly alright becuase you would be using XP's NTLDR to boot Slackware's Lilo. The link has this detail in Task E4 too.

If your Slackware isn't bootable you can break into it with a Live CD by following the first part of Task B3 and restore Lilo in any where you wish by the chice of "/dev/hdax", where x is the partition number and without it is for MBR. For a Laptop bought 10 days ago your disk could be a Sata and "hdax" should change to "sdax"

If Lilo hasn't been built then while inside Slackware (Task B3 refers up to and including the chroot statement) you can run the terminal command
to generate /etc/lilo.conf although it isn't hard to write one from scratch, by consulting any Linux that has Lilo inside.

If you don't want to lose XP's MBR then by all means let NTLDR boots Lilo but the effort required is about 3 to 5 times more than letting Lilo to boot Xp. The latter requires Lilo overwriting XP's MBR which is restorable by XP installation CD, as described in TaskB1 and B2 of the same link.

Ok Guys thank you so much I'will test now and if I have any problem I post HERE! Thank YOU again!

Hi everyone! My first post was to be a question, but since i ran into this i thought i'd give you a hint of what i used to solve the problem 3 or 4 hours ago when i installed slackware on my laptop.

Well, as i found out, there is another way to get LILO to work when you have installed it at the root partition of your Linux installation.

Using cfdisk (or fdisk-the first one is easier to use), you toggle the bootable flag of your root partition so BOOT is written right next to it. Now you should have two partitions that have a BOOT written next to them, your Windows one and the Linux root one. The problem is that DOS can't accept two primary partitions that have a bootable flag, so what i did was to toggle the flag of my Windows partition. Now i have only one bootable partition, the linux root one.

What is very important, is to install LILO at the Linux root partition to get it to work that way, otherwise, only Linux will boot. Anyway, if you have a problem, you go back to cfdisk, set the windows partition to be the only one bootable and you boot directly to windows.

I hope i was clear, as i am a Linux newbie too...

Good luck!

angelique84 tnx a lot, but I found the solution to my problem! I tryed the MBR and it run..

Tnx