installing linux on a dual boot win98/xp box
 

Hi,
I am a newbie and would like to know if I need to make special arrangements to install linux on a box which is already dual boot with Win XP/98.

I have previously installed linux on win98 boxes and made them into dual boot machines, but this I have never attempted before.

I am worried because I don't want to screw up my mbr and disable both Xp and 98 from booting.

Can I just go ahead and install linux without worrying about booting issues and assume that grub will take care of all the booting stuff and in effect make my box a triple boot box...;-) ?

Please advise.
Thanks in advance

yes pretty much.

I will however give you my bootloader in case all fails.

print this document in case you cant access the internet when you install linux.

This will not directly work on your system as for one you have a 98 and xp system and two you probably have more harddrives and partitions than I have so you will need to configure accordingly.

I would say take a chance and just install the system, Most likely you will have no probs.



the below code is located in the /boot/grub/grub.conf file

edit like this if you know how to use VI

vi /boot/grub/grub.conf

OR

gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf

OR

kedit /boot/grub/grub.conf

in a terminal


-----------------------------------------------

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-28.9)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-28.9 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-28.9.img

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-28.9BOOT)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-28.9BOOT ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-28.9BOOT.img

#OLD KERNEL
#
#title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
# initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

title Windows XP
# as far as I can understand it the Windows XP hard disk hd1
# needs to think it is the first disk on the IDE bus in order to boot
# so do a swap and add the following two commands to change it
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
# you then need to tell grub which hard disk and which partition to read the booting information from
# although you have done a swap using the above commands the disks don't change their labelling
# so use hd1,0 as the root device (in grub all numbering starts at zero)
# the telltale to knowing which partition to add to the rootnoverify option
# is the output of fdisk -l the `*' on /dev/hdb1 showing it's the active or boot partition
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
# now tell grub that you are going to be doing an indirect boot using an external chainloader
# i.e it's going to grab the Windows boot code and run it instead
# of directly loading the linux kernel like it usually does.
chainloader +1
# not sure exactly what makeactive does
# I'm assuming it is marking the root partition you specified
# with the rootnoverify command as the active or boot partition
# if it isn't already marked as the `*' or boot partition
makeactive

Thanks for the info....in any case I think I can always do a fdisk/mbr to format my mbr if anything goes wrong......but won't that also erase my windows bootloader??
please advise...

yes I think so.

However you can configure the windows bootloader manually if you need to.

-JAX