How is the best way to dual boot Slack 14 and windows 8? It's been a while since I set ap a dual boot system.

wufo

UEFI put aside, that's pretty easy.

For instance I have this setup on Slackware 14.0 alongside Windows 7:

/dev/sda1 Windows (reserved, rescue etc.)
/dev/sda2 Windows (data)
/dev/sda3 / (Linux)
/dev/sda4 swap

(1) make room for Linux: defrag your HDD fro Windows, the with 'gparted' on CD or USB downsize /dev/sda2 (takes a while) then create new partitions in freed space
(2) install Slackware but do not yet install lilo
(3) use the DVD or an USB key to boot Slackware, then install lilo. You can use liloconfig for that or edit /etc/lilo.conf by hand. Make /dev/sda3 bootable and have in /etc/lilo.conf /dev/sda3 (root Linux partition) as boot device:
This way you won't touch the MBR.
(4) run 'lilo -t -v' then if all goes well 'lilo'
(5) remove the Slackware DVD and reboot.

^ LILO doesn't work on UEFI/GPT systems.

You have to use eLILO from the Slackware-current tree.

I would also highly recommend disabling "secure-boot" in the BIOS/Setup, and using something like rEFInd (http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/) to manage the dual boot.

Other than eLILO, you can use SysLinux which is already pre-installed on Slackware, or grab the SlackBuilds through a recovery boot and download, build, and install GRUB2 which all support GPT partitioning.

Apologies for reopening an old thread but I've got a couple of concepts not clear yet and I got no feedback from my own thread:

Is this statement still valid even if the PC supports legacy BIOS? Or in other words, would Elilo work in legacy Bios mode?

This is how I plan to boot my system, from a USB stick with Syslinux.

LILO works on all the EFI systems I have tried, just need a mbr.

I guess the best way would be install Slackware64 14.0 with elilo and a boot manager like refind to manage dual-boot.

You also should install efibootmgr to handle the EFI boot entries.

Unfortunately, neither Slackware64 14.0 (due the old version of Linux) nor Slackware64 -current support the EFISTUB technology, so you cannot boot Linux directly with refind (and without elilo), unless you rebuild the kernel with "CONFIG_EFI_STUB=y" in config file.

LILO 24 which comes in Slackware-Current now works better with GPT

afaik windows 8 does not boot without secureboot enabled.. correct me if im wrong there.

so.. if win8 needs secure boot and slack does not boot with it the idea of dualboot is impossible.. just some logic.

I think you are mis-interpreting information. For a computer to be pre-installed with Windows 8 it must have secure boot enabled. You can turn it off though.

I dual boot Slackware and Windows 8 on my laptop. No extra packages were needed. But my laptop has 2 hard drives which make this easier. My partition layout is:

/dev/sda1 Windows 8 (reserved, rescue etc.)
/dev/sda2 Windows 8 (data)
/dev/sdb1 /boot (Linux)
/dev/sdb2 swap
/dev/sdb3 / (Linux)
/dev/sdb4 /home (Linux)

lilo installed in sda's mbr and both OSs boot and run fine.

If it's a PC/laptop secure boot can be turned off, but if you do so you also turn UEFI mode off and continue in legacy BIOS mode (at least my laptop).

If it's an ARM device with Windows 8, you're stuck with Windows.

CONFIG_EFI_STUB doesn't work unless the root partition is hardcoded into the kernel, which makes it rather useless for distribution kernels.

I am not understanding something. How does one hard code the root partition into the kernel. I understand that UEFI will use a stub kernel if its on the efi partition, but I don't know how it uses a hard coded root partition. Are you talking about
CONFIG_CMDLINE_BOOL=yes
CONFIG_CMDLINE=[the root partition goes here]?????

Thanks for your patience
john

Yes. If you don't have something like CONFIG_CMDLINE="root=/dev/sda1" in your .config, the kernel isn't going to be able to find the root partition. Also, you won't be able to use an initrd, which reduces your boot options considerably. Setting up eLILO is easy, and avoids these problems.

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If I'm not mistaken in my reading of this method, you basically have to boot a system in recovery mode, then configure and build a custom kernel with the /(root) partition path of your system hard-coded into it.

Because not everyone will have the same device and partition labels of their bootable /(root) or /boot drive, distributing it would be impossible.

Example:

One person may boot from /dev/sda1, while someone else might be using /dev/sdb3, /dev/sda2, etc.