triple boot?really?? no way...

[freaky_planet12]

hello my fellow peoplez

i would like to ask how do u post in a forum such as this.... naw i'm just kidding....LOSEN UP MAN!


ok the real QUESTION:
i wanna boot win98,win2k,and red hat.
maybe i'm just stupid or something....(dont answer that)
i've heard to install win98 then 2k then let linux handle the mbr...is that right?

ex: on a 15gig harddrive how should i partition the drive accordingly? 10 for the windows and 5 for linux?

i appreciate all the help...

thank you,
a linux idiot :confused:

[nerrollus]

Err.. No offense, but why would you want to run 98 and 2k? Just run Win2k and slip the HD in half. ;)

I know Win2k would install first, but there's supposed to be some trick with dual booting 2k and linux.

[Jomboni]

If he's a gamer, some games aren't supported under 2k.

[nerrollus]

Like what? I've run 2k since it came out and have yet to run into any problems running games.. As long as you keep things updated you shouldn't have any problems..

[nfallon]

LILO will handle the triple.

[Special Ed]

I agree that it does seem sortof pointless to use Win98 and Win2k. My roomate has been using 2k solely for over a year now, and he is a HEAVY gamer. Never seen any problems with it... of course, you should have a pretty good computer to run games well under 2k, since it does gobble up quite a bit of resources, but if you have a decent computer, you should have no difficulty with just 2k and redhat...

anyways, definately give windows a larger area than Linux, since linux is capable of mounting FAT32 (and NTFS too I think), but windows does not conventionally recognize linux filesystems. This way, you can still use the FAT32 as a dumping ground if you run out of space on your Linux partition.

[freaky_planet12]

yeah i'm a gamer
i tried playing the zipped verion(if u know wat i mean..off of mirc) of half life and counter strike wit a proper cd key and it wont work under 2k on the net but it stupidly does under 98...
can u give me a link to the LILO thing ur talking about....

my comp....
800mhz
384mb ram
cable connection
matrox dual 16mb vid card

[nerrollus]

Weird.. I've played half life, CS, and a ton of other popular games under 2k with no problems.

It's true you do need a hell of a system to do it with thought. ;) Sorry to seem naggy, but the thought of running 98, 2k, AND linux on a 15 gig HD makes me cringe. hehe ;)

[Special Ed]

LILO is a bootloader that will be installed when you install redhat. If you want to use LILO , then install the other two OSes first. When you install Liux, it will wirte LILO to the mbr (master boot record), and your computer will execute the bootloader program automatically after POST. I am not experienced enough with bootloaders to tell you the details of te 1024 cylinders limitations of some bootloaders, and I also don't know what happens if you install LILO to /root/boot; I am sure there is a NHF that discusses this topic though ;)

[freaky_planet12]

well
i'm sure if i had the cd's to hl and cs it would work fine but i have the ZIPPED versions of them from mirc, ya know wat i mean now?
i have a server on my network and keep junk on that so i really dont care about this 15 gig
this is just to learn from smart people
LIKE U GUYS... :cool:

oh yeah should i just scrap 98 and win2k
then combine winxp wit linux instead?
using xp's OS selcting option for the games?
or is xp not as stable as 2k ( yeah yeah i know linux is the most stable.....)

THANKS!

[nerrollus]

Originally posted by freaky_planet12:
<STRONG>well
i'm sure if i had the cd's to hl and cs it would work fine but i have the ZIPPED versions of them from mirc, ya know wat i mean now?
i have a server on my network and keep junk on that so i really dont care about this 15 gig
this is just to learn from smart people
LIKE U GUYS... :cool:

oh yeah should i just scrap 98 and win2k
then combine winxp wit linux instead?
using xp's OS selcting option for the games?
or is xp not as stable as 2k ( yeah yeah i know linux is the most stable.....)

THANKS!</STRONG>


Ya, those zipped versions aren't all that reliable.

XP, from what I hear XP is the most stable winbloze out, but there are a lot of questionable things about it. If I would you I'd go with a 2k/linux setup and you should be ok. 98 just seems useless to have if you've got 2k to me. ;)

BTW, LILO is a frontend loader that comes with Linux. If you run it with 2k make sure you don't have it install onto the MBR though or else 2k won't boot anymore.

Good luck.. =)

[ 02 November 2001: Message edited by: nerrollus ]

[m3rlin]

freaky_planet12 do you wish to have a 3 boot?
If so it's not very hard as it seams, the key to have a working trible boot, is make linux to be the boot loader(the only in the MBR) then all you have to do is to edit lilo.conf and specify where is the other boots. I already had a trible boot, win98,win4.0, and linux suse 6.3, and it work just fine.

[bdg1983]

Originally posted by freaky_planet12:
<STRONG>yeah i'm a gamer
i tried playing the zipped verion(if u know wat i mean..off of mirc) of half life and counter strike wit a proper cd key and it wont work under 2k on the net but it stupidly does under 98...
can u give me a link to the LILO thing ur talking about....
</STRONG>

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lilo.htm and the NHF's right here at Linuxnewbie.

[z0mbix]

Why don't you just buy the half-life generation pack? It's cheap. I run it on w2k with no probs! seems alot easier that having 2 win operating systems.

:p

[deadlock]

The key to a triple boot system is to install the OSes in the right order.

Windows 9x will always wipe the mbr clean, whether there's an OS installed already or not, so install that first. Then install Windows 2000 and then install Linux. Windows 2000 will recognise that Win9x is already installed and create two entries in it's boot.ini file. When you install Linux, it will detect the existing mbr and create an entry in LILO for Windows - just one entry: when you select this entry, you'll be taken to the Windows 2000 boot loader, where you can choose what version of Windows you want to boot.

As for partitioning, it all depends on your needs. If you're a gamer, then you'll probably want to give the bulk of your hard disk over to Win9x and split the rest between Win2k and Linux. How split this is entirely up to, but you have to ask yourself: which are you going to use most ?

To be honest, I don't think you should bother with Win2k, if all you're using Windows for is games. Just dual-boot between Linux and Win9x - I know Win9x is less stable than Win2k, but every game under the sun runs on it, give or take.

[SUOrangeman]

I hate to differ from sound knowledge, but I currently boot six OSes off of one hard drive using Microsoft's NT loader.

Why? Well, all MS operating systems will overwrite the MBR *without asking*. At least non-Windows offerings like Linux and FreeBSD, etc., give the opportunity to choose what you'd want to do with the MBR.

When I installed Linux, I put LILO on the /boot partition instead of the MBR. Other OSes like FreeBSD, BeOS, and QNX seem to be "self-booting" in their own rite.

Finally, I grabbed BootPart from www.winimage.com (http://www.winimage.com) -&gt; bootpart and added each non-Windows partition to the NT loader menu. Technically, you don't need this tool, but it sure makes things easy.

-SUO

[freaky_planet12]

my humble thanks to u all

jezz u guys are smart....
as i understand...i will let linux handle the mbr then i'll slowly take over the world wit my linux box? :)
just to make sure...linux can write fat 32 and ntfs but cant always play the windows games?

my thanks again.

[bdg1983]

Originally posted by freaky_planet12:
<STRONG>
jezz u guys are smart....
</STRONG>

And you only had the stupid ones helping you this time. ;) :D ;) Just kidding.

Linux can read and write to fat32 partitions with no problems, but NTFS write support is still experimental especially with the newer NTFS5 that W2K has.

Fat32 r/w
NTFS read-only

[ASCI Blue]

I did ME, XP and Distro of choice for a while. I had ME installed first, then did XP and after that did Mandy 8.0. It was set up so going to Windows would take me to the XP/ME selector.