Time to try Linux again

[theclave]

I previously dabbled with RedHat, but gave up 'cause my onboard soud wouldn't work with it (I can't live without music!). I now have a sound card which should work, so I am going to try again.

Could someone please talk me through dual booting my system?

At the moment, I have 2 Hard Drives - one of which has windows Me installed on. I want to give the other one over to Linux, and be able to choose when i boot up which OS to run.

[snivlle]

Originally posted by theclave:
I previously dabbled with RedHat, but gave up 'cause my onboard soud wouldn't work with it (I can't live without music!). I now have a sound card which should work, so I am going to try again.

Could someone please talk me through dual booting my system?



At the moment, I have 2 Hard Drives - one of which has windows Me installed on. I want to give the other one over to Linux, and be able to choose when i boot up which OS to run.

Well, to keep it really simple, unless of course you're a very knowledgeable linux user, I would use boot magic or "system commander"

[f'lar]

What disto are you going with? The same redhat? What version?

[Q-Gdoxl]

Two words Boot Magic!
for a newbie it is one of the easiest wayz

[theclave]

I shall be using RedHat...probably 6.2, as this is the one I already have downloaded....could get any distro I like though - nice fast internet connection.

OK, where do I get boot magic from, and how do I go about using it?

[Webby]

i personally suggest getting a more up to date version of mandrake or red hat for your first time since they tend to be easier to get the partitioning done on. hard drake is a good tool to use for partitioning your drive and is free. partition magic isn;t (although was bundled with mandrake 6.5).

once you have all you hard drive things done then you could choose any distro you like.

since you have tow drives you should have windows on the first drive (hda) and linux will be installed on the second (hdb). you can use either lilo or grub to choose which operating system, when you install your distro it;ll say which it uses (or give you a choice). just make sure you tell it to be installed on the MBR (master boot record) or it won;t work. the installation should detect windows and set up things so you can choose between the two at start up.

if you need ne more help give us a shout
ive done this set up soooo many times on my machine with so many distros that im just about getting the hang of it.

Alex

p.s. i think partition magic (and boot magic if you want) can be got from powerquest (http://www.powerquest.com). this is the company that makes these programs.

[Kadesh]

I like the loadlin trick, there's an NHF on it. No purchase necessary :). I don't need it (100% Linux goodness) but it worked for my brother who couldn't fit a /boot in (Why Red Hat didn't upgrade their distro to the latest LILO, I don't know).