I have 3 things: a Windows XP restore cd(that came with my pc), Redhat 7.2, and Mandrake 8.2. I want to have a triple boot pc so I can choose to boot into XP, RH, or Mandy. I don't have the slightest idea on how to go about this. The 2 distros seem to get mad at the NTFS file system. I'm running XP now. I'm wondering in what order I should install them and what configurations, partitions, etc. My HD is 37.2 GB so i know i have enough room to do this. Please be very specific because outside of windows i'm like a confused labrat. thx

You have to make room on your hard drive first. Start by defraging your drive and then resize the windows partition to make room for mandrake and redhat, each one will need a root partition but they can share the same swap partition. Have a look at the how-too's available at the linux documentation project, there are several covering this subject depending on what boot loader you decide to use (nt loader, lilo or grub). If you decide to use lilo for your bootloader then do not use the version that ships with redhat, it's an outdated version that cannot boot a linux kernel that resides above cylinder 1024, mandrake ships an up to date lilo that does not have this limit and grub is ok as well.

I thought that if you bought a computer with Windows OEM pre-installed that the vendor was obliged to give you an OEM installation CD rather than one of their stupid 'rescue' cds.

In order to triple boot, you will need to install one distro and its boot-loader (either lilo/grub); make sure it all works fine, then install the other distro without its bootloader.

My setup is WinME, Mandy 8.1, Slack 8.0. I installed Windows first, followed by Mandrake.

Once I had Mandrake working OK, I installed Slack. I made sure that the bootloader was not installed, then booted to Mandrake.

Mounted the Slack partition from under Mandrake (mount /dev/hda13 /mnt/slack -t ext2 - the /mnt/slack dir needs to be created first, though), then copy the kernel image over from the Slackware partition to the Mandrake one (cp /mnt/slack/vmlinuz /boot/slackware), edit my lilo.conf file (or grub.conf file...which ever you choose, and add a section for the new kernel. Run lilo to put the new settings in place, and hopefully all should be well. When you reboot you'll be given the option to boot either.

The vendors arent allowed to give away windows CD's anymore. Microsoft forces them to pay more for a windows cd to stop piracy (apparently) The vendor can buy a disk from microsoft for £30 UK and can sell that on to you. How this stops piracy is odd really cause someone who has a liscence can buy a CD and then copy to their harts content.

I thought that PC Vendors had to buy their individual licenses for OEM versions of the OS (in this country), so since they're having to pay for it in the 1st place, and aren't supposed to use any given CD/licence on more than 1 machine, they should have no problem with giving you the CD - after all, they're not supposed to use it on any other machines.

Not that it really worries me, I tend not to use it anymore...and I buy my hardware in pieces and build the machines myself...shop bought computers- pah!

I think PC manufacturers have a generic installation which is installed multiple times. All they have to do then is send out these so called 'rescue' discs.

Saves them money on licences and helps to keep Micro$oft's dominant position.

Hopefully, not for long........


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