noob wants dual boot dsl/win95
Forum: HD Install
Topic: noob wants dual boot dsl/win95
started by: filbertius
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 14 2007,05:30
i have a 233mhz pentII gateway tower running win95a with 130m ram and a 4gig hd which i am not ready to re-format just yet. i recently got a 20gig hd from a slightly newer computer with a blown-up motherboard. i have also been playing a little with a bootable cd of dsl.i would like to put the bigger disk into the computer (plugs, bays, etc appear ok), and run it as linux only, leaving the old hd as win95 only, using grub or somesuch to dual boot.
advice please...
1- am i crazy? (well i am... but for doing this... you know what i mean)
2- does anyone know if win95 will barf when it sees a 20g disk?
3- should it matter which is master or slave (i assume i need one of each)?
4- how much of the install can i do while on the live-cd? (i've seen a menu item for hd install)
5- i will still need to wipe the new disk - do i need to reformat it as well, and am i better off doing that within windows, or while running dsl (see #4)?
thanks in advance...
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 14 2007,21:38
too cold and mucky for yard work... may get up on my documentation and plunge on in.wish me luck...
Posted by skaos on Jan. 15 2007,11:41
1. No, many people do this.2. I don't think so. The bios may not recognize 20 GB (maybe only 8) but this should not be any problem for grub/linux which should see the whole disk.
3. I suggest that you set the 4 GB disk as primary master and the 20 GB as primary slave.
4. I think you can install the whole of DSL with that menu item.
5. Before installing you have to set the correct partition types (I think linux is type 83 and swap 82, or may be the other way round) with DSL's cfdisk or fdisk. You may also have to repartition it with cfdisk or fdisk. You can wipe the disk from DSL with one of these commands:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdb (hdb=primary slave, this wipes the entire disk - be careful, watch your typing: hda is primary master)
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdb1 (first partition on the primary slave, hdb2=second partition etc.)
Good luck!
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 15 2007,19:14
thanks skaos.was not yet cold or mucky enough, so it may be the coming weekend before i try. will post back here to let ya'll know how it went.
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 20 2007,15:02
sufficiently cold and mucky...progress so far...
installed the new(er) 20g hd. bios sees it, not sure win95 does (would not matter to me if it could).
did the hd partition and install, and grub install while running on livecd, as in dsl-wiki.
now... (and i hope to fix this easily as soon as that room warms up a little more)... when the computer boots, it still goes only to win95 (seems fully functional still), with no sign of grub or dsl. when i boot on livecd, dsl does show a statement that it is using my swap partition on hdb1.
i think that the problem was my too strict following of the wiki, which was i guess was written mostly for dual boot on one disk. there was no mention of making hdb bootable, so i left that out.
i am planning to go back into cfdisk shortly and try to make hdb bootable (am hoping that can be switched w/o starting over).
otherwise... everything has gone pretty smoothly so far.
one other note on the wiki. after the partition and livecd reboot, i first was denied access to the disk to continue assigning the partitions. i thought a moment, whacked myself on the side of the head, and re-entered the sudo -s command again.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 20 2007,18:41
| Quote |
| now... (and i hope to fix this easily as soon as that room warms up a little more)... when the computer boots, it still goes only to win95 (seems fully functional still), with no sign of grub or dsl. when i boot on livecd, dsl does show a statement that it is using my swap partition on hdb1. |
About win95 seeing the new disk's partitions - windows by default cannot see linux partitions, and thus, will not show up (unless you install some 3rd party software, or use FAT partitions)
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 21 2007,01:03
partial progress...i have changed the boot order. now i get the "grub _" black screen lock-up. i can still boot onto the livecd (as am now).
i have tried to follow a thread posted to another post referring to the grub lockup, telling how to edit device.map, but have not been able to get any editing done. i have been trying beaver, but i think device.map is still read-only.
also - i have tried (earlier) to use cfdisk to set hdb as bootable. on that front, i have tried setting each of the partitions as "boot", but saw no difference, and was not able (as far as i could tell) to go to a deeper level below the partitions.
thanks for putting up with me...
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 21 2007,02:25
| Quote |
| i have changed the boot order. now i get the "grub _" black screen lock-up. i can still boot onto the livecd (as am now). |
| Quote |
| i have tried to follow a thread posted to another post referring to the grub lockup, telling how to edit device.map, but have not been able to get any editing done. i have been trying beaver, but i think device.map is still read-only. |
| Quote |
| also - i have tried (earlier) to use cfdisk to set hdb as bootable. on that front, i have tried setting each of the partitions as "boot", but saw no difference, and was not able (as far as i could tell) to go to a deeper level below the partitions. |
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 21 2007,02:46
as to the editing of device.map....in the earlier thread i had seen, the person was deleting all lines except for the one referring to hda. in my case should i leave the lines for both hda and hdb, or only the hdb, as that is my linux drive?
and then... do i still need to re-install grub (or should i try lilo)? i don't yet know which would be any better.
thanks,
gary
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 21 2007,03:20
| Quote |
| and then... do i still need to re-install grub |
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 21 2007,15:25
a few things i am still trying to clear up...i have not been able to find a text editor besides beaver, and have not gotten beaver to allow me to edit device.map (have been looking in the wiki and forums unsuccessfully).
the posting threads i have found so far on grub problems seem to be mostly referring to frugal install, and i am hoping to make a full install.
as to which device.map i have been trying to edit - i have assumed that the full install would need me to edit one on hdb. i haven't yet found a device.map below /cdrom/
so far all i can find is /KNOPPIX/boot/grub/device.map - just now tried to use the edit button on emelfm, which brought up beaver, which i still can't make any visible change with.
one other thing i realize may be messing me up - i make the bootable cd a while back. i wrote "dsl 2.3" on the disk. it shows to load INIT 2.78 KNOPPIX and 2.4.26 KERNEL. is that part of my problem?
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 21 2007,18:55
| Quote |
| i have not been able to find a text editor besides beaver, and have not gotten beaver to allow me to edit device.map (have been looking in the wiki and forums unsuccessfully). |
| Quote |
| the posting threads i have found so far on grub problems seem to be mostly referring to frugal install, and i am hoping to make a full install. |
| Quote |
| as to which device.map i have been trying to edit - i have assumed that the full install would need me to edit one on hdb. i haven't yet found a device.map below /cdrom/ so far all i can find is /KNOPPIX/boot/grub/device.map - just now tried to use the edit button on emelfm, which brought up beaver, which i still can't make any visible change with. |
| Quote |
| one other thing i realize may be messing me up - i make the bootable cd a while back. i wrote "dsl 2.3" on the disk. it shows to load INIT 2.78 KNOPPIX and 2.4.26 KERNEL. is that part of my problem? |
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 21 2007,19:39
i have been booting using the livecd (currently the only way the computer will boot). when trying to boot on hd, i get the black grub screen lock-up. when i boot with the livecd, the computer does show that dsl is using my swap partition on hdb1. is that already a frugal install (except for no way yet to dual boot)?i am looking for a way to have some version of linux entirely on the hd (without needing to plug in a cd at all). my internet connection is medium speed at best, so i'd prefer going with dsl or something not too much bigger.
if someone feels there is a better choice than dsl, i'd appreciate input.
mostly i just want to get something running so that i can learn enough to quit asking so many stupid questions.
thanks
gary:p
Posted by roberts on Jan. 21 2007,20:03
DSL can be installed in many ways. Many times your answer depends on specifically which way it was installed and with what options were selected.While grub is very powerful, it is not that noob friendly.
The location of the menu.lst depends on how DSL is installed.
A traditional hard drive install would be /boot/grub/menu.lst
if a frugal, it would be /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.lst,
if frugal with the toram option then you would have to mount the drive, say hda2 and then it would be /mnt/hda2/boot/grub/menu.lst
The minimalistic grub installer I have put into DSL, should work without editing. If Windows is on hda1 and dsl is installed elsewhere on hda. The installer asks you if Windows is on hda1.
The lilo boot loader I have made to install in the target partition.
Then you mark the partition active to use it.
Another boot loader that is noob friendly for a mixed or complex, multi OS, environment is gag boot loader.
< http://gag.sourceforge.net >
No edting of files, this boot loader looks at all partitions of user selected drive(s) and presents menu choices of which to boot. With DSL should you use lilo. Lilo works well with gag. My test system has four drives with gag, hda1 Win95, hda12 DSL Traditional, hdc1 WinXP, hdd1 DSL frugal.
Not that you need to use gag.
With choices comes complexity, but also much flexibility.
HTH
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 21 2007,21:00
i have looked at menu.lst and see lots of references to hda which i imagine i need to change to hdb.i have also see the "toggle readonly" selection in beaver's edit menu - but i still can't make it do anything.
where do i need to go to change permission, and might menu.lst be the only one i will need to change?
thanks
Posted by roberts on Jan. 21 2007,21:52
right click Beaver icon to become super user to edit root owned system files.
Posted by filbertius on Jan. 29 2007,00:33
about to just bag the whole project (tho i may ge try gag first) but just wanted to pass on my latest notes...even when i open beaver as super-user, i still can not edit the menu.lst - i can highlight text, etc, but have not been able to add or delete anything.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 29 2007,03:15
You'll have to first mount the partition that you installed DSL on, with the mount tool or the like(since you are not running it yet, you cannot use /cdrom)
Then navigate to /mnt/hdXx/boot/grub/ and edit what you need, as root.
Posted by filbertius on Feb. 01 2007,02:55
latest installment of my saga...tried to do the hd frugal install - frugal doesn't like hdb, insists in hda.
decided that my out-of-date cd of dsl might be part of the problem, so went ahead and made a new disk with dsl-n (i've got enough size and would still like as full of a linux as i can get...)
new livecd runs fine (as a livecd).
i am now allowed to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst as super (and supposedly save the changes - but every time i re-boot it brings back the old menu.lst - i suppose because i am back to the cd, and can not yet boot off the hd).
full install to hd still brings me the black grub screen of death.
frugal install still insists on hda.
i do have an old 500meg empty partition on hda (from win95), so i re-typed it as linux 83, and tried to use it for the frugal. turns out that the livecd has mounted it as hda5 for a knoppix swap file (as well as claiming to use my hdb1 official swap partition), so it won't let me use the hda partition anyway.
ah well...
Posted by ron on Feb. 01 2007,03:00
I've got a DSL and FreeDOS dual-boot system, with LILO as the bootloader. It gives me a screen when I power up, with the option to choose which OS to boot. I can't remember exactly how I did it but it followed a bit of googling and then editing etc/lilo.confThe FreeDOS is on a FAT32 partition, so it tells me I can have either "Windows" (which isn't installed, but it goes into FreeDOS instead) or "Linux" (which goes straight into DSL login).
Posted by filbertius on Feb. 01 2007,03:18
i can hardly even focus my eyes right now, but will get some sleep and try to catch up on the other threads then. may be some pertinent things i can try. it seems as tho a lot of my difficulty is trying to run with the second hd. my only real question for now is would lilo actually be any better for a dual boot with dual hd's?
Posted by filbertius on Feb. 01 2007,03:19
and incidentally, my last two frugal install attempts were with lilo.