I've just started with Knoppix linux and i've got to say it's pretty cool, what i want to know is if i can have my computer setup to dual boot (knoppix and win2k) i want to be able to choose which o/s to boot into when the computer is starting up

Barry

If you have Knoppix installed to the Hard Drive, a dual boot is certainly possible. But since Knoppix is a Live distro, this request seems a bit odd... anyways...

Install Win2k first to it's own partition. Then, install Linux, and configure LILO to recognize both the Win2k partition and the Linux one.

Using the search feature of this site, you can find many other posts on setting up a dual boot system. Good luck.

this may seem like a dumb question but what is LILO?

LILO is the boot loader. Its responsible for starting up an OS.

Another common option besides LILO would be Grub. Both work quite well.

So how exactly do it get into LILO to configure it , is it part of linux or windows?

LILO and Grub come included with most Linux distributions.

First off, you need to make sure you have one of them installed. For LILO I believe the config file is /etc/lilo.conf

I am not too sure about that though. Run a search here on LQ for LILO and/or Grub relating to dual booting, I am 99% sure you will able to find info on setting up one of those two boot loaders. I don't really know much about either of them, I normally just let the Linux installer I'm using configure them for me.

Sorry I'm not more help, but yeah, do a search, you should definitely be able to find help.

LILO=LInux LOader. It's a Linux program. I don't know about installing Knoppix to hd - that's not really what it's designed for anyway. But the file controlling LILO is /etc/lilo.conf - just edit it with your favorite text editor if Knoppix's hd-transfer scripts don't set it up for you.

digiot-- does knoppix only come in a live CD form? I have never looked much at it.

Well, there are different flavors of Knoppix but they're all Live-CDs afaik. But, due to popular demand, Knoppix seems to include a more or less experimental transfer script. It's a very nice piece of work as live CD, though. Worth checking out if you've got the bandwidth.

Oh I definitely have the bandwidth... what I need are some blank CD's

I'm not sure I really like the idea of running completely off CD... sounds like load-times would be kinda long and I can't fully customize things... anyway, I digress and a mod probably will yell at me soon....

Well, b_morgan can pick up stuff about his distro from this - I figure it's on topic.

It is slower off the CD but not too bad. And, if a hard drive install *did* work, that and the customizing issue would go away. As far as customizing, you can't *fully* customize, but you can save configuration settings and a sort of home directory to a compressed file on your hard drive if you've already got a Linux partition (or maybe it doesn't even require a Linux one). Then you just pass those options at the boot prompt. So that's nice. But, no, I couldn't see using it as a main OS. As an emergency disk or a demo or something to play with it, it's quite useful or fun, though. Not absolutely necessary, maybe, but I like knowing that, as long as I've got a cd-rom drive I've got an OS and as long as the modem and nic works I've got a connection, no matter how fubared things may get in a hard drive disaster. Of course, the Slack live-cd is pretty nice for that, too.

Copying a live CD to a harddisk shouldn't be too much of an issue. Copy the file system, and then vmlinuz to a Linux native partition. Then, set the parameter off a boot disk as mount root=/dev/hda1... though I've never actually tried this... it sounds right.

b_morgan:

If you are interested in a doing a dual boot easily, I would recommend a distro like Red Hat. Since you sound new at this, I'll help you out as best I can.

First, your windows disk should have a program called fdisk on it. Use this to make a decent sized (but save at least 3 gigs) for win2k. Install windows to this partition, reboot, and see if it works OK.

Second, pop in the Red Hat disk and using the installer, you can turn the free space (left over from the windows install) into a linux partition. This is quite easy in RH's graphical interface.

Last, it will prompt you sometime during the RH install about configuring GRUB (similar to LILO). It should automatically detect your windows2k parition, and set everything up for you. Once the install is complete, reboot, and you should be at a nice graphical screen where you can select either Windows2k or Red Hat.

Come back with anymore questions, or search the LQ archive.

As Peace mentioned - why not try a more "typical" dual boot with one of these distributions.

Red Hat, Mandrake, SUSE, JAMD, Vector.

You can check out all the major Linux distributions and more at Distrowatch -

Click here to go to Distrowatch

Hey I appreciate the help and ya i'm definatley new at this , i've never even seen linux till the other day, although i'm pretty knowledgable with the whole windows thing, i'm no pro. problem is i don't have red hat , i have knoppix and i paid for it, also i have no idea where to get red hat. Is linux really that hard to learn?

Hi b

If youve got a broadband modem you can download Linux distributions for free (you can do with 56k - it just takes ages)

You can also buy extremely cheap Linux distributions from online sellers - they essentially only charge for post and packing

www.yourlinux.com

For example :

Mandrake 9.1 - 3 cd set - £6
Red Hat 9 - 3 cd set - £6
Slackware 9 - £2

etc