triple boot suse 9.3 with winxp/win me
 

Hi. I am a newbie to Linux I have SUSE EVAL DVD 9.3. My system has 3 primary partitions on an 80gig drive. I presently use Windows XP(60gig ntfs primary partition), Windows ME (4 gig fat primary partition), and an unused FAT partition of approx 8 gig (where I wish to run SUSE 9.3).
I wish to retain my ability to boot Windows xp and ME which now works well. How can I get SUSE 9.3 to my empty 8 gig primary partiton, and have the choice of using any of the systems on startup?
Thanks..

Hi and welcome to the forum. I don't use Suse so I don't have any specific details but most of the mainline distributions put out in the last couple of years have much improved user-friendly installers. Your cd should have all the tools you need. Some advice. Back up all the files you consider essential, preferably to a cd, floppies, etc! You should also make shure that you can boot your Windows partitions with a floppy disc or cd in case your mbr gets screwed. Have fun.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux-Newbie and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

You use now a program that allows you to choose which OS to boot, right? Before installing Linux you should decide if you want to stay with it (possible) or install one that comes with Linux.

Windows one requires you to make a Linux bootdisk during installation and then make some tricks to make it all work (link available if you're interested).

Linux program, on the other hand, may (in some cases) fail to work or find only one Windows OS. Manual changes are possible, so it's not a big problem. There's one bigger -- every time you reinstall Windows (ME -- always, XP -- you can avoid it) you need to reinstall the program.

A triple-boot configuration sounds very unmanageable to me: you should not need to run both Windows-XP and Windows-Me.

Furthermore, I would argue that "computer hardware is not so expensive these days" but that you cannot have more than one computer... one dedicated to Linux, the other to Windows... the latter having been consolidated to just one single version.

The same rationale would be equally apropos if all of the OS's in question were by exactly the same vendor... supporting multiple platforms by means of a process that constantly requires a single piece of hardware to be shut-down and rebooted is quite awkward.

If more than one piece of hardware is involved, per contra, the "pays-the-bills" system can continue to be in-service without interruption while the "alternate" system or systems run alongside them. If it is desirable for you or the staff to gain experience in the alternate-system, that can be done without running the risk of loss of service or data. If a move from one platform to the other is being contemplated, by you or by the business, parallel testing can be done again without the risk of interruption.

Furthermore, it is always wise for a business to standardize on one version of "whatever" operating-system, and to make sure that all production systems are upgraded together. A small set of test-systems should be used to experimentally test any new updates to the operating-systems, and then those updates should be rolled-out simultaneously to the production-floor.

Windows ME is evil.

Do yourself a favor and un-install it as quickly as possible. If you insist on dual Microsoft booting, go for Win9x. Or NT4.0. Or Server 2003. Heck: boot DR-DOS, or find a CP/M emulator. *ANYTHING* but ME!!!!!

IMHO .. PSM

Well, in any case, Windows-ME is the last version of Windows that was based on MS-DOS. It has no built-in security, no decent implementation of the Windows32 environment. It is a very unreliable platform compared to the ones that have succeeded it.

As much as I might despise giving praise to Microsoft ... ;) ... the Windows-NT platform (which underlies WinXP and the like) really is much better. You should therefore be able to eliminate Win-ME from the picture completely. You should be able to adapt any applications which seem to be reliant upon WinME so that they run satisfactorily under WinXP, and you definitely want to do that. This would reduce your triple-boot situation to double-boot, and then, as I strongly recommend, you can convert that to "two separate computers."

Let's face it... computer-stores around the world are chock full of "cast off" computers that, if viewed honestly, are anything but "cast-offs." Even if you stack two computers on top of each other and buy a keyboard/video/mouse (KVM) switch, it's a much more practical arrangement than dual-booting, imho.