i have finally got my hands on windows xp and i want to set up a triple (potentially quad) boot system. my current set up is like this:

hda1 win98
hda4 win ext'd fat32
hda5 fat32
hda6 /
hda7 swp
hda8 /home
hda9 ext3 (spare)
hda10 fat32

I have read lots about this stuff and i am aware that it is best to keep win98 where it is. i have also read it is best to have a windows partition at the start and end of the ext'd partition. i have also read (told you i read) that i have to have all my bootable partitions in the first 8GB. so i have this scheme in mind:

hda1 win98 <2GB
hda4 ext
hda5 winXP 5GB
hda6 /
hda7 swp
hda8 /home
hda9 ext3 (spare - will later repartition multiple times with new linux parts!)
hda10 fat32 (for sharing between linux, win98 and winxp)

That look ok? i'll tell you what else i know. installing XP after 98 is best cos it writes the NT bootloader and allows you to dual boot 98 and XP, right? But this will kill LILO in the MBR. i am comfortable installing and setting up lilo. i can boot my linux part from a CD and reinstall lilo later, that is no biggy.

what i am not sure about is what to point lilo at? i get the feeling that if i point it at Win98 OR winXP it will start the NTbootloader. i read a howto (well, started) about using lilo to boot NT, 98 and linux but it required muchos messing about with the NTloader, which didn't seem necessary if you were happy to have a two step boot, which i am.

is my understanding correct?

finally, hda6 will be within the first 8GB right? or does the whole part have to fit in that first 8GB? when i add new partitions (in hda9) they will be outside that 8GB, i guess this is bad. i am assuming that even with a bootloader they have to be in that 8gb (BIOS thing isn't it).

so that means i will need to create a /boot partition in /hda6, which will contain all the boot info for the later linux parts? is that right? so later...

hda1 win98 <2GB
hda4 ext
hda5 winXP 5GB
hda6 /boot 1GB
hda7 /vectorlinux
hda8 swp
hda9 /home
hda10 ext3 (spare - will later repartition multiple times with new linux parts!)
hda11 fat32 (for sharing between linux, win98 and winxp)

and i'll share my home and swp.

how's that? do i get good marks for understanding? i know all these nitty gritty details are available on the net but i find it best to seek counsel other than my own and discuss my plan before i do it, just in case i missed something dumb

should i set up that /boot while i am at it?

Your understanding is pretty sound. 1GB is _way_ too big for a /boot partition though, you'll be wasting a lot of space. Bear in mind that you'll only need a few MB per distro for the kernel and any associated initrd, splash files and so on. My /boot partition is ~256MB, I can boot 7 kernels/distros from it and there are only 31MB of files on it.

If the NT bootloader is installed on hda1 (where Win98 _has_ to go, XP can sit on a logical partition anywhere), you point LILO to it as follows:

#######################################
other=/dev/hda1
label="Windows"
table=/dev/hda
#######################################

You could also reduce the size of the XP partition to around 3GB and only install the OS onto that, freeing up some space for an NTFS partition to install windows apps to. This'll save you reinstalling all your apps if (when?!) windows goes tits up.

excellent stuff! thanks for the pointers about /boot, is it easy to setup a seperate boot partition on an existing set up? will a LQ search suffice?

i didn't realise you could do that with windows...is it an XP thing?

>>is it easy to setup a seperate boot partition on an existing set up?

I'm not too sure about that, I've only done it when starting from scratch with a new hdd.

AFAIK, you can separate OS and apps from Win98 onwards.