I have Mandrake 10 and W2K. I would like to change the boot order. I did a search but didn't understand some and weren't sure if that are distro specific. (The poor wife needs W2K to boot first for her really important emails

Please keep it simple.

Well I am asuming you mean you want to change the default from mandrake to windows when you power on the computer. If that is correct you will first have to tell us what bootloader you are using: Lilo or Grub?

Yes, I would like W2K to be default.

LILO

log on as root.

Edit the /etc/lilo.conf file

Look for the line that says label=windows, dos or the like and change the line that says default= to the above label.

Then rerun lilo
/sbin/lilo

If in doubt post the /etc/lilo.conf file.

I recommand that before you attempt any of this that you make a boot disk for your system to get back into linux. This is just incase anything goes wrong writting the MBR to the drive and your bootloader does not work. If you need help with a boot disk let me know.

Ok well all this will have to be done as root sosu to root at the shell
Then make a backup of /etc/lilo.conf
Go edit the file /etc/lilo.conf
At the top there is a line that says default=Linux Label (Sometime sometimes the kernel version)
Change that for the label of what you want to boot by default. The label will also be the same as what is shown on the boot menu when the computer starts, it will be something like DOS or Win2000. Just look in the entries in the file and find the right one, there should not be to many, only one for every entry you have on your boot menu.
Then save that file and at the shell type
That will tell you what the lilo program is going to do in terms of writing to your MBR, if there are any errors STOP NOW and do not continue. You might have messed something up in your lilo config so just go back and take a look.
Once everything comes back alright at the shell type
And this will write the new boot record to the MBR. If you get errors at this stage do not reboot, restore the original lilo and then do lilo -v -v and try to figure out what you did wrong.
I tell you to restore because if every your systems crashes with a bad MBR you might not be able to boot anymore.
If you need anymore help let me know and I will try my best.

Here is lilo.conf....

So what should change here?

Thanks, I really appreciate the help.# File generated by DrakX/drakboot


# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3-7mdk
label="263-7"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.3-7mdk.img
append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 devfs=nomount"
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda
other=/dev/fd0
label="floppy"
unsafe

I am not sure what all of your labels are for, but ti get W2k to start change default="linux" (the third line excluding the comments) to default="windows"

Then just do the lilo stuff I said.

does this work the same for grub?

No grub is slightly different.
What distro are you running?

grub usually uses a numbering system for the default. if you have the line: then it would boot the first os listed as the default. if however, you had: then it would boot the second, etc. this uses the computer science convention of counting starting with zero.

hope this helps.

Wow. This is fantastic! Exactly what I was looking for... Mandrake 10, Windows 2000. Need to leave Windows as the default OS for my wife. I'll try it out and report back. Thanks so much

Well, I said I'd let you all know....
Worked first time. Thank you so much. I think I'm going to like Linux.