Hello. im absolute newbie at linux. yetserdeay i just managed to install Linux (Debian) on my comp and got a little bit confused.
i have 4 partitions on my hard drive, hd1(system), hd2 for WinXP; and hd3 and hd4(swap) for linux. after the first reboot i got a window with a caption - LILO 22.5.7.2... , to choose a drive to boot from.
it looks something like this:

hda1(NT) <---thats where my winxp system is
hda2(NT)
LINUX
the default boot drive is actually hda2 (???). whell, what i managed to do from within linux is to change "hda1(NT)" name to "Windows" but i couldnt make it default boot drive.

i can choose to boot from hda1 manulally and my winxp works fine, but it windows doesnt recognise the other two partitions(ext3 file system). is that should be that way?

1. how can i change the default boot drive to hda1(Windows) and remove hda2 from that LILO list because it is not bootable???

2. is it possible to get rid of that LILO, and when starting winxp, there would be a list of operating systems that i could choose from(winXp or Linux) (like when hitting "F8 or whatever" key)?

look at your /etc/lilo.conf file, there is everything you need.

To remove a partition from the boot-menu, simply delete a block, like

image = /boot/bzImage-2.6.0apm
root = /dev/hda1
label = 2.6.0apm
read-only


To make another partition default, change the line
default = xxx
where xxx is the label of your new default partition.

To your second question, it is not possible like you say.

You need a bootloader, like lilo or grub.

You could alternatively use loadlin, where you boot default in win_xp and if you want linux
you go to command line mode and tipe in "loadlin"

aaa, how can i override that lilo.conf file? its read-only.

You have to be root.

If it still dont work, then set the writeable flag to the file.
chmod +w /etc/lilo.conf

Or use vim as editor, and save the file with :w!, where ! means override the read-only. (only works if you own the file, so you have to be root anyway)

Well. im an absolute lama i guess. i dont know how to save a file with vim. there are no such menu and i dont know how i could do this from terminal.

ok.
thats what i do:
i go to the terminal. becoming root (su, psw) then getting to etc/ (cd /etc)
then i write
chmod +w /etc/lilo.conf
then
vim lilo.conf

and then i try to rewrite some things with pressing two times "insert" key, because otherwise it wont let me to modify anything.

what to do next?

or am i doing something wrong?

go in a terminal & type :

man vim (man produces the doc related to the command you type)

it explains you how to use it.

Try this link too

www.vim.org/htmldoc/howto.html

To save things in vim you have to use :write!. Depending on what desktop enviroment you are using, you can kwrite (kde) or gedit (gnome), and besides them, there are loads of none-command line text editors out there.

im using a terminal, because i know how to become root there (su). im using gedit, and when i open lilo.conf with non-command editor, i dont know how to become root without using the terminal to overwrite this read-only file.

Well, if you su to root and then run gedit from the console, you'll be able to save the changes as root.