Order of installation for dual boot...Slackware, Vista, 7.

captain_juno · 09-02-2009, 09:05 AM

Right now, I have Vista on my laptop. What I'd like to do is dual boot with 7 (when it comes out) and Slackware. Can I install Slackware now and when 7 comes out later uninstall Vista and install 7 where it was? Or, will I need to uninstall Slackware as well?

zhjim · 09-02-2009, 09:12 AM

As long as you do some partitioning you don't have to reinstall or uninstall any of the Operation Systems.
But i bet after installing Windows 7 you have to reinstall lilo or grub to boot into all the os's. But not for sure. Maybe Windows 7 also honours linux.

I'd following something like this:
1.) Install Windows
2.) Install Linux
3.) Update Linux
4.) Update boot manager

ongte · 09-02-2009, 09:14 AM

You can install Slackware now, to dual boot with Vista. When you get 7. You can install 7 into the partition where Vista was. This will replace Vista with 7, but it will overwrite MBR, removing GRUB & preventing Slackware from loading. You will then need to reinstall GRUB from a LiveCD. (Any distro's LiveCD will do)

vonbiber · 09-02-2009, 09:24 AM

If you installed grub as your boot loader

before you replace vista by 7 you can do this

1. make a copy of the current mbr by running this command:

dd if=/dev/sda of=mbr.sda bs=512 count=1

(assuming your hard drive name is /dev/sda)

2. install 7 to replace vista

3. restore the mbr (from a live linux system, mount the
partition where you saved the file mbr.sda, then):

dd if=mbr.sda.5591 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1