Lighthouse
The following
article pertains
to those wishing to dual boot Linux. I used the distribution Red Hat
9 for this purpose with an NTFS file system. Information I found on
the Internet also helped me with this issue.
The first
thing I did was to install Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. According
to the documentation, I found this will also work with Windows XP.
Installing Windows first is a prerequesite since it appears Windows
is unable to see Linux, but Linux respects Windows.
After
this is done you must make space on your hard drive for Linux, unless
you already partitioned your drive with free space. While I was able
to do this on the computer I built, my laptop's recovery CD's refused
to allow such a procedure taking the entire drive. As a result, I
used a third party partitioning utility to resize my harddrive called
Partition Magic. While there is a free utility "FIPS" put
out by Linux with the express purpose of doing this, I did not hear
the best reviews of it and went with the product Partition Magic.
Now for
the dual boot steps:
1.
Install the Linux boot loader, preferably GRUB on the first sector
of your /boot partition when you come to the appropriate installation
screen.
2.
After finishing the Red Hat install, reboot into Linux with your
boot disk or try booting into Linux rescue mode if you failed to
make one.
3.
Edit the file /etc/grub.conf if you want your version of
Windows to show instead of a generic title name as "DOS".
4.
Now determine the partition containing you /boot partition by running
the df command. The output should show the file system name
as /dev/hda2 mounted on /boot. Note your actual partition
number could differ.
5.
Make a copy of your Linux boot sector on a floppy and call it linux.bin.
Mount your Linux floppy with the command:
mount
-t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
6.
Now issue the following:
dd
if=/dev/hda2
of=/mnt/floppy/linux.bin
bs=512 count=1
7.
Reboot into Windows.
8.
Copy the file linux.bin to C:\
9.
Run Notepad and edit your boot.ini file. It should look similar
to this:
[boot
loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\winnt
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\winnt="microsoftwindows2000professional"/fastdetect
c:\linux.bin="linux"
10.
Note, there may be a small rectangle at the end of this file. If
so, just postiion your cursor before it and press enter to bring
it down one line. Then insert before.
11.
To edit the boot.ini file you first must make it not only
visable, but writable by changing its attributes. At a command prompt
type: C:\attrib -r -s -h boot.ini.
12.
After editing boot.ini, enter C:\attrib +R +S +H boot.ini.
13.
Now you may wish to also give your linux.bin file the hidden
attribute.
14.
Reboot and you should have a menu choice of Windows or Linux.
15.
If you choose Linux you will then see the Linux boot menu.
Tips
Hidden
Files
In Linux,
just as in Windows, we have what are termed hidden files. These files
are preceeded by a dot and producing a simple listing of our files
with the ls command will not display them.
If one
wants to see this hidden files in our directory listing use the command
ls -a.
ISO
Images
An ISO
image is an exact copy of a binary CD. They are typically used by
the various Linux distributions for downloading of their installation
CD's. Do not just burn these images to CD's as data, rather you must
copy using something such as copy as CD image.
Your
CD burning software may or may not recognize ISO images automatically.
In any case, the exact instructions may be found by just typing in
ISO image on Google or visiting a Linux site.
Comment
For those
interested in Linux, I noticed that Red Hat will no longer be distributing
a free Linux operating system under its name. It will now be participating
in what is called the Fedora project. The first distribution, Fedora
1 has recently been released. Go to http://fedora.redhat.com/download
HELP
DESK
