Alright folks, here is my scenario, i had slackware 10 and windows installed on a laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1150 to be exact, and while i had the two of them on alone, the machine ran like a dream... would have married it if i could. I start a new class on linux in my college tomorrow, Collins College of Phoenix, Arizona, and the instructor is going to use Fedora Core 3 on to teach the class. So over the this weekend, i backed up windows and all personal files that i had in linux, and i used acronis to repartition my hard drive. I left 20 GB for windows, 10 for Slackware 10, and 20 GB for Fedora Core 3... I also had a 1 GB swap and a 1 GB /boot partition so that i would be able to use the grub boot loader. With both windows and Slack still on the system i installed Fedora w/o the GRUB boot loader, i just left LILO on they system. All installation went fine, but when i try and load Fedora off of the LILO boot loader, i get a message that says that there isn't enough space... something like file too large of something, i know that is critical to remember, but it escapes me (of course at the most crucial time)... So i go back and format the Fedora partition and i reinstall fedora, only this time i have the same amount of space for all OS, but i have almost 4GB set aside for the /boot partition and this time i do install the GRUB boot loader... yet again (go Linux) everything installs without a hitch and i get to the GRUB boot loader, and i still see all three of my operation systems, first i boot Fedora.... works great, then i boot windows.... again works great.... but when i go to load Slackware, GRUB gives an error message that says that it can not read slackware OS, that it is the wrong format... this is where i am currently at... it sucks, can you guys help me out. Is it even possible to have both Slack and Fedora on the same machine!?!?!?!? Is it just that i am spoofing something and i do not know it?!?! I am not a total newbie when it comes to Linux, but i am also no systems admin/analyst either... i appreciate the massive amount of time that it took to read my ranting and raving while i am in utter peril... thanx... May the Linux be with you

Agent Ice

Well, you could first make you boot partition no bigger then 100MB. If it ever uses 50MB I'd be surprised.

I think you are not being able to run the second Linux distribution because you are installing it on a extended partition(->guess-<). Try putting it on a primary.

Those are all the tips I have so far

I have never used Fedora, but I always put Linux on an extended partition. I don't even use a boot partition on multi boot installs.

Always thought that both Linux and Windows had to be on a primary partition. Windows also "prefers" to be at the first primary. Well, my bad. Well, I've 3279 posts, I wonder how many are hit and how many are miss... I guess 85-90% is miss .

Well, i solved my own problem... i know that there is a better way of doing it, but it will have to work for the next ten weeks that is my new course, then i can get rid of Fedora and go back to just slack and windows... here is what i did:
i went back in and reinstalled Slack on the same partition that it was originally on, only this time when installed slack, i installed LILO on a super block rather than on my MBR... this resulted in:
push power button and system loads to GRUB allowing me the boot options of windows, fedora 3, and slack 10, i can boot directly to windows and Fedora from here, but when i boot to slack, it redirects to the LILO boot loader that is on the superblock which allows me to boot to Linux and windows.... it is a freaking circus of a setup, but it gets the job done... not to mention it would probably confuse the heck out of an unknowing person if they tried to use my machine.

but now i am having new problems... hehe (if it wasn't for bad luck, i would have no luck at all...) i found a site that tells me exactly how to fix my exact problem on this exact machine, only problem is, i have no idea what in the heck it is trying to tell me... (my problem is that i can not get my X gui to start in linux, it tells me that there are no compatible configurations, and this doc tells me the exact solution, but i have no idea how to implement it in the xorg.conf file, here is what the doc says:

Video

Slackware 10.0 comes with X11R6.7.0 from X.org. I upgraded it to version 6.8.1. I used the x11.SlackBuild script and X11 source from slackware-current to compile 6.8.1.

I configured X with xorgconfig. I selected the i810 driver. For HorizSync, I selected 31.5-48.5 kHz, and for VertRefresh 50-70 Hz. X works in 1024x768 mode with 24-bit color depth.

I selected "Auto" for the mouse and the touchpad works fine.

I added the following line to the "Monitor" section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf to turn off the LCD monitor (including the backlight) after a period of inactivity:

Option "DPMS"

I added "vga=773" to /etc/lilo.conf and the VESA framebuffer console operates at 1024x768 resolution with a color depth of 256.

I added "intelfb" to /etc/hotplug/blacklist.

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http://www.geocities.com/acarirfan/inspiron-1150.html
that is the site if you folks need a bit more context or are having the same problems... it also has a lot to show for how to get wireless working, and sound and all that other good stuff... this is not as urgent to fix, but i would like my precious slackware to be working perfectly again, but i can to as much in console as i cant on X, as well as the other way around (in other words, if i cant do it in X, i can do it in console, and if i cant do it in console, i can to it in X)

That is why in need to have my X up and running... thanks again folks... and especially thank you Linus.

You'll need to edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to carry out those instructions/ You'll find a section for your video card where you can set what driver you use, and also a section for your monitor where you can set stuff like the refresh rates.

Also, when I've borked Xorg in Slack I've often been able to fix it just by rerunning xorgsetup. I think sometimes the Slack installer doesn't put good values in there for some reason (saw this on my backup desktop which I upgraded from Slack 10 -> 10.1 this weekend).

how do i go about rerunning setup for xorg? is the setup for it in the etc/X11 folder and i am just not finding it or what?