Standard Noob Question, How to Dual Boot?

[Able72]

Ok, here goes the question thats been asked a thousand times by every noob under the sun almost. How do I set up a dual boot with Linux?

The two OS's that I'll be running are Win XP pro, and Linux (most probable distro currently is Mandrake 8.2, but I would prefer some instructions that would work with any distro since I plan on trying several)

The Hardware that will be run for this box follows(just in case it makes a difference):

Asus P4B533-E Mobo
Intel P4 2.4b ghz
1 512MB Corsair DDR PC3200
Adaptec 19160 SCSI Controller
IBM 36GB SCSI HD
IBM 18GB SCSI HD
Plextor 12/4/32 CDRW(SCSI)
Pioneer 10x DVD ROM(SCSI)
Iomega 100 MB Zip drive(SCSI)
Generic 3.5" Floppy
Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1
Chaintech GeForce 4 4200Ti

Once the dual boot is set up, I then have the question of how to install the drivers to get all this up and working. Creative I know supports Linux up to the Live! 5.1 and I heard that Nvidia is now supporting Linux. The big question is the Adaptec Card. Does Linux natively support SCSI? Or am I going to need a driver for the card?

Any help or ideas about where to find solutions for these problems would be appreciated.

 

[Titan386]

You always have to install windows first. During the install it wipes the master boot record, and this would hose any linux bootloader present. I suggest a fairly small (about 5 gigs) for just the windows os itself. Thats your first partition. Then, begin the linux install. You will need at least 2 partitions, a / and a swap. The size depends on what you will be doing with linux. I personally use 10 gigs. During the linux install, it will ask you to install a bootloader. You will have the choice between LILO or GRUB (at least on most distros). LILO is unable to boot from higher than the 1023rd cylinder (about 8 gig mark) so keep that in mind if you choose LILO. GRUB has no such limitations. The bootloader configuration should have two entries, one for linux and one for windows, each pointing to the partition each os was installed on. Make a linux boot disk just in case you have bootloader troubles. Thats all you need to do for a basic dualboot system. Its really not hard at all.

As for drivers, a while back I showed how to install NVidia's drivers under Red Hat 7.3 on this thread:
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=110543
I dont know if that info will help you any if you chose mandrake. There is linux support for SCSI, but it requires SCSI support to be compiled in the kernel. The newbish distros (red hat, mandrake, etc.) usually have this already done for you. Hope this helps.

 

[Able72]

what if I plan on using the 18 gig HD for Linux and the 36 gig for Windows XP. Would this change anything? Would I need to specifically set to boot from the 18gig then, in order to be using the Linux boot sector?

Also, since Lilo has such a limitation, is there any reason to use it over Grub? Aside from personal taste perhaps?

Thanks

 

[Titan386]

I don't see any problem in having the OSes on different drives. I've never tried it however, so I can't really give you much help with it. If I were setting it up, I would have about 4 gigs on the 18 gig for XP, and give the rest to linux. Then, format the 36 gig in FAT32 and use it for shared storage. Of course, that just my opinion, its up to you. I know of other people that have done what you want to do, and have it working. Probably you could install the bootloader on the MBR of the windows drive, set that as the boot drive, and have the bootloader configure to boot the first partition of the second drive for linux.

Some people prefer LILO, others GRUB. LILO has two main limitations that I know of: not booting above the 1023 cylinder and it must be rerun when its config is changed. GRUB has neither of these. I've used GRUB, and I think its the better of the two choices, although both did work for me.

 

[Able72]

I didn't know Linux could read Fat 32. The only file system that I knew that windows used that Linux could read was Fat 16. And with Harddrives the size I have, that one just wasn't an option(at least not one I would take). Thanks

I will definetly have to think long and hard about how I'm going to split up and format the drives.

 

[Titan386]

Yes, linux can both read and write to FAT32. It can only read to NTFS, usually only with a custom compiled kernel, however. You might want to take this into consideration if you want to access the partition where windows is via linux.

 

[Able72]

Ok, heres what I'm thinking, format the 18gig with Fat 32, for all that shared data like MP3's and (if linux will run it) DivX movies, text files, etc.

Then split the 36 gig between Linux and Windows, the only thing I'm having trouble figuring out is how much space I should give to each OS, since I'm not familiar with the application sizes in Linux (after all, The OS doesn't really need access to a file it can't do anything with.)

 

[zachj]

You can indeed install Windows on one drive and Linux on the other. I've done it and it didn't even ask me about it. No problems here. Unfortunately, my Windows XP install hosed itself and I had to reload......I wrote over LILO. Is there any way to get that back? Can I go to control panel, system, advanced, startup and recovery and then change my boot.ini file? Or do I have to re-install Linux? I didn't make a boot disk because I hate them and I hate floppies and I think they're useless. Guess they show their usefulness right now, don't they?

Z

 

[Titan386]

Right now I have a 60 gig hdd. XP has 4 gigs for itself, which takes up about half. Linux has 10 gigs, and it varies depending on how many programs I have installed. But I defintely need the 10 gigs. The OS and the programs it comes with take up about 2 gigs, then there is other stuff that wants to be on the root partition. If you plan on working a lot in linux, you will need more space. I'm working right now on building a linux from scratch system, which requires quite a big chuck of disk space. For everyday use, you could probably get away with something like 5 gigs for linux, but thats rather cramped. If you aren't doing anything that will take up a lot of space, I'd say around 10 gigs for linux is enough.

 

[Able72]

so, you would recommend about 10 gigs on the 36 gig for Linux, leaving two other partitions, 2 gig for boot, and about 24 gig for windows? Then there would be the 18gig to hold all the shared stuff.

 

[Titan386]

Probably most of your programs that windows would use could probably be stored on the shared partition. If you can afford more space for linux on the 36gig drive, it might be a good idea to give linux a bit more. 10 gigs is a good miniuim though. Think about what programs you will be using and where you would store them. Plan it out, cause reinstalling just to resize partitions is not fun (I know from experience).

 

[Able72]

Well, I have a copy of partition magic, not sure which version. So that wasn't a concern until I read about some people trying to remove mandrake 9.0 using it had some serious problems.

Don't suppose you would know where I could find info on the differences between the file systems for Linux do you?

 

[Titan386]

The most popular filesystem are ext2 and ext3. ext3 is basically a journaled version of ext2, so that if your system shut downs unexpected, you dont have to check your disks. I found this info on filesystems, it seems very extensive, have fun
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Filesystems-HOWTO.html