Triple-boot Win10, MX, Slackware

Captain Brillo · 02-27-2019, 09:38 PM

Couldn't find any similar threads - Slackware's LILO is confusing me.

I have a box that came with Win 10, which is good for emergencies, and I added disks and now boot into MX Linux, with Windows pretty much hidden.

I have a spare partition I tried to put Slackware 14.2 onto, but I ran into issues with MBR-grub-LILO

I'm about to blow away and re-install MX, but the Windows is basic.

How do I now install both Slackware and MX in their own partitions, and retain access to Windows?

Okie · 02-27-2019, 09:57 PM

before you installed slackware you had win-10 and MX dual booting just fine with MX's grub boot loader???, what i would do is install slackware, then just ignore slackware's boot loader and add slackware to MX's grub bootloader, with kernel-huge it wont be a problem but if you want to use kernel-generic your slackware install will need an initrd built, check the README file in slackware's /boot

if you need to reinstall both MX and slackware, then install slackware before MX and then MX's installer should find both Win10 and slackware and add it to MX's boot loader,

(this just an educated guess based on my previous experiences)

Captain Brillo · 02-27-2019, 10:02 PM

Thanks, I was hoping somebody else would validate my nefarious plan...

Richard Cranium · 02-27-2019, 10:25 PM

I've used Slackware's grub2 to triple boot between Slackware, Win10, and Ubuntu. That's using BIOS (my MB predates UEFI).

Paulo2 · 02-27-2019, 10:36 PM

I don't know about elilo and UEFI, but lilo can boot Windows 10.
I have dual boot Slackware/Win10, but my setup probably is different than yours.

Slackware is installed in the first disk (sda) and Lilo is installed at the MBR of that disk.
Win10 is on second disk (sdb), so the Win10 MBR record stays untouched.

I think you can set any disk as first boot device in BIOS currently.

Code:

NAME   FSTYPE LABEL       SIZE 
sda                     111,8G                                      
├─sda1 ext4             103,4G 
└─sda2 swap               8,4G 
sdb                     372,6G                                      
├─sdb1 ntfs   XP         39,1G                      
├─sdb3 ntfs   10         53,7G                      
├─sdb4 ext4   VMachines  97,7G 
└─sdb5 ext4              30,3G

Win10 section in Lilo

Code:

# Windows bootable partition config begins

other = /dev/sdb1
  label = WindowsXP-10
#  map-drive = 0x80
#   to = 0x81
#  map-drive = 0x81
#   to = 0x80
  table = /dev/sdb

# Windows bootable partition config ends

enorbet · 02-27-2019, 10:37 PM

I currently have a UEFI machine running in Legacy mode that houses 5 operating systems. I boot all systems from my Main, Slackware 14.2, which has LILO installed to MBR but all the others have their bootloaders installed to Root so I have excellent redundancy, easy, guaranteed recovery. I still have Win 7 but haven't booted it in ages but for it I just change boot order since Win7 is on a different disk from Main. I only use Grub when I'm forced to. With LILO it is possible to boot other systems with the "Other=/dev/sdfoo2" type entry or by copying the boot files to my main /boot directory. Each has it's own descriptive name so there is no conflict. I can choose to boot Win 7 from LILO but I prefer to just F11 > Boot Order.

RadicalDreamer · 02-28-2019, 11:32 PM

Try rEFInd if you have UEFI
https://slackbuilds.org/repository/1...?search=refind
You have to go to its directory to install it on your EFI partition after running the slackbuild. It picks up everything automatically that is bootable on EFI.

enorbet · 03-01-2019, 03:21 AM

It is not at all clear to me whether or not OP is using UEFI or Legacy, since he did mention LILO, not eLILO. That information should probably come first.