I'd like to know about all the ways to create dual or multi-booting of different OS'(the easier the better-for the newbies who might want to do something like dual booting).And how many OS' people have running on their systems.I know this is a unique way of people getting the most out of there OS'. And I think this will help all those fed up with windows. But still have to use Windows on occasion.Yet they can't afford to have more than one computer
I just created a dual boot with Windows XP and Fedora 9. installing Fedora had been a pain. The install had been problematic at best. But it became easier after I found a program called "Boot Key".It sets up your system so that neither OS knows the other exists,which is cool. And right now it's FREE(you can purchase it so it is faster,but why if you can use it for free). The only limitation is that if you decide to go from one OS to your secondary OS you have to wait for 15 minutes to transfer to the second one.
So how did you do a dual boot,and how many OS do you have?

For the newbies I'd recommend to read information on dual-booting and stop being a newbie.
Installed each OS on separate primary partition. Installed lilo into beginning of Linux partition (not MBR). Made Linux partition with Lilo active/bootable. Edited lilo.conf to add option to boot another OS.

Another way to do dual-boot (when one system is WindowsXP/NT) is to install both systems on separate primary partitions, make sure that both partitions aren't hidden, then make Windows partion active/bootable, and boot loader (Lilo) is installed into beginning of second OS's partion. Extract boot sector (that contains lilo - this is 1st 512 bytes of partition) with any available tool, put it on windows partition as, say c:\linux.bin, add line
at the end of the "boot.ini", reboot, and you'll have option to chose OS during Windows startup.

You could also use both methods at same time. This way you'll be able to choose to boot linux from windows, and in Linux loader you'll have option to return to windows loader, etc.


Two. Had three at most, I think.

Thanks for your info. The reason I decided to create this thread is because a lot of people look at dual booting as another language. Kind of like when I first started using Windows 20 years ago,which to this day I'm still constantly learning more about. And now I again feel like a newbie because I finally decided to use Linux.So I hope we can have a single place for people to learn options when dual booting.And a place to find out more info on how to do so.Like where to get info,such as what websites or books to use. Like what the Linux community is for.

Unlike most things on Linux, with dual-booting there really is only one "right" way. (Erv's way.)

Any other would-be way of doing things ultimately leads to problems. Now there are several different variations of it, but any any documentation you read will pretty much tell you to do things the same way.

However, there is Wubi. While not TRUE dual-booting, it is a much, much better approach for the newbies who don't wish to be anything more than users. That is, people who couldn't care less about the hows and the whys and just want the freaking thing to work and let them do whatever they want to do. The natural response for some people is "Well then don't use Linux" or "They need to learn," but Linux is about choice, and they don't need to learn.

Linus himself said an operating system should be transparent. This could be construed many different ways, including the fact that it should be easy and intuitive to use, requiring the user to perform no difficult steps whatsoever.

However, both of the previous posters are correct. Erv's way is the only true, correct way to dual boot.

Thanks for all the information.I hope to continue to learn Linux,as I have for all the years I've used Windows.

I find it preferable to have >1 HDD. I keep Windows on one, and can put a who;e stack of ditros on the other(s).

I install grub on the second HDD and chainload from there. The BIOS boots from the second HDD by default.

If anything breaks badly, I can always set the BIOS back to the fist HDD (Windows). If Windows needs to be reinstalled, no problemm

Very clean.

One of the best ways to use Linux and Windows (when absolutely necessary) is to format everything, install Linux, and run Windows and any needed applications in a VM. Of course, this is only a viable solution when you're not using graphic-intensive programs in the Windows environment, but it has allowed a few of my friends to switch from dual-booting (and thus typically using Windows 90% of the time because rebooting is a hassle) to use Linux full-time. Set up an icon on the desktop/launch bar/whatever, they click it, and then they have Linux when they need to use Microsoft Office or some other business application.

i like that solution as well, very clean, very neat and easy to use. ofcourse it is easier to just setup the os you use less in vmware, but sometimes its not enough

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