Help w/ Dual Boot: Xp and Linux redhat

[plastick]

I have never used Linux..never even touched it... And now I have a class here at college for it. So I want to install Linux RedHat on my xp system. I have an 80 gig with 3 partitions: 10, 30, and 40 gigs. The 10 has xp on it, the 30 has all my files and stuff on it, and I figure I can use a part of the empty 40 for Linux.

During a workstation installation I chose "Keep all partitions and use empty space for Linux" (something like that), but I got a message about the inability to allocate something or other.. Then I am put to the screen where I have a part of a tree with /etc and some other directories.

What I'm hoping for here is step by step instructions on what I should do.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[drag]

Well if you made the 40gig extra space into a partition it isn't considured "free space" anymore. It's just a unformated partition. Free space is unutilized space on a harddrive that can be used to make partitions out of.

If you want good doc the best place to go is redhat.com itself. Most of what you'll get is general advice about partitions, file formats and setting up lilo or grub.

however Redhat has nice and specific instructions on different aspects such as this installation manual

Read thru that and it should answer most of your questions.

here is some more documents on your system

Read thru that and that would be great prep for your classes and make you more familar with your new OS.

Also use search engines like google and the new, but excellent vivisimo. Linux has more documentation (most very high quality, too as long as you make sure that they are latest versions) online then any other OS.

Also here is a good tip:

after you get familar with your system head down to freshrpms.net and read thru there and install apt-get for rpms

This will make it easy to install programs and updates for your computer. Normally you'd have to search around for various rpms and is frustrating. Using apt or yum you can set it up so that you get all your programs from certian ftp and http sites and will download and install them automaticly.


edit rpms not tpms, typo. RPM = redhat package manager, these are program packages. Also fixed links...

 

[Basie]

Just to add a word of caution. It's best during the installation procedure to choose NO
Bootloader. Make a boot disk instead. This way it won't mess with the mbr and boot.ini
of WinXP. And if you don't like RH linux you just have to format the partition it's on.

 

[plastick]

Thanks guys.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Basie
Just to add a word of caution. It's best during the installation procedure to choose NO
Bootloader. Make a boot disk instead. This way it won't mess with the mbr and boot.ini
of WinXP. And if you don't like RH linux you just have to format the partition it's on.

I disagree.

Definitely make a bootdisk as a backup. But unless you know you're going to remove the Linux install in a short time (maybe you're testing compatibility or something), booting from a floppy becomes very tedious very quickly. So then you decide to add the bootloader to the hard drive (trust me, you will). That's where the problem starts. Unless you have some weird disk situation (mixed IDE/SCSI, add-on IDE controller cards, RAID, etc.), the Linux installers will properly set up a dual-boot loader in the MBR 99% of the time. A newcomer to Linux doing the same thing manually will screw it up 99% of the time. The majority of dual-boot problems on this forum run the same way - somebody second-guesses the installer's defaults or adds in the bootloader later, and screws up his system. Then it takes 20 posts over 2 days to fix the poor dude's system because he doesn't know LILO from GRUB, a logical partition from an extended one, anything substantial about the boot sequence, or even what information he should provide for others to fix things. Let the installer handle the bootloader - if you decide to ditch Linux later, just delete the partition, boot to the recovery console on the Windows CD, and do a fixmbr. Takes 5 minutes, and it's simple. Much better than using a secondary system for days because you locked yourself out of your primary one, and can't provide us with enough information to fix things up.

 

[CarltheUnholy]

best bet to not damage XP...

Get another HD. 10 gig should be more than enough, and are practically given away by anyone with extra PC parts laying around.

Load this disk up, and set it as Master via the jumper on the back. Then set your existing drive as Slave.

Load linux on the new master, and choose grub as the loader. It may autodetect XP on the other drive, it may not, but it is exceedingly simple to alter the config file to get XP into grub.

Now you have a dual boot machine. If you ever want to go back to plain XP, just pull out the linux HD and set the other one back to Master.

 

[thornc]

Anyone heard of Lilo on a floppy... boots almost as fast as bootiing from disk, and you don't have to worry about messing the MBR. Which, btw, as cleverhandle points, is easy enough to fix these days( even in old days )

 

[plastick]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: Basie
Just to add a word of caution. It's best during the installation procedure to choose NO
Bootloader. Make a boot disk instead. This way it won't mess with the mbr and boot.ini
of WinXP. And if you don't like RH linux you just have to format the partition it's on.

I disagree.

Definitely make a bootdisk as a backup. But unless you know you're going to remove the Linux install in a short time (maybe you're testing compatibility or something), booting from a floppy becomes very tedious very quickly. So then you decide to add the bootloader to the hard drive (trust me, you will). That's where the problem starts. Unless you have some weird disk situation (mixed IDE/SCSI, add-on IDE controller cards, RAID, etc.), the Linux installers will properly set up a dual-boot loader in the MBR 99% of the time. A newcomer to Linux doing the same thing manually will screw it up 99% of the time. The majority of dual-boot problems on this forum run the same way - somebody second-guesses the installer's defaults or adds in the bootloader later, and screws up his system. Then it takes 20 posts over 2 days to fix the poor dude's system because he doesn't know LILO from GRUB, a logical partition from an extended one, anything substantial about the boot sequence, or even what information he should provide for others to fix things. Let the installer handle the bootloader - if you decide to ditch Linux later, just delete the partition, boot to the recovery console on the Windows CD, and do a fixmbr. Takes 5 minutes, and it's simple. Much better than using a secondary system for days because you locked yourself out of your primary one, and can't provide us with enough information to fix things up.

-----

You got it right man. Its getting annoying waiting for Linux to load. I want to keep Linux. So... Whats the procedure for adding the btldr to the hard drive. errr..would it be easier to reinstall linux and choose to create the bootloader?

Thanks

 

[DickSpeed]

to the Unholy...

Setting your drives to master or slave should be irrelevant if you use cable select. unless you think it's easier switching jumpers than cables. Six of one... I prefer all CS, and switch the cable occasionally...

But what about Grub? I installed Fedora first, then installed WinXP, have edited boot.ini to point to the linux boot partition (which was set up with Grub/Fedora from RedHat). I've heard in the past that it's always best to install windows first, but I didn't this time, figured the fantastic open-source community would have been past this issue by now. Seen some things that involve installing bootloaders in WinXP, but I'm not going to do this - I'll reinstall first.

BTW - this is going to be a media center PC (but without XPMC) to play music and videos and generate visuals for other audo inputs. Purely recreational - no hurry, here - but I wanted to experiment with RedHat's latest consumer release of linux too - and maybe set up a home website to organize my shared data.

Anyway, I'm still stuck with boot.ini loading WinXP ok, trying to load linux, but I keep getting a hal.dll not found error. So I'm looking...

 

[DickSpeed]

Carl - why mess with jumpers - CS will handle everything, and when necessary, just change cables - can't be any harder than changing jumpers while the drive's installed...

To whom it may concern, the forums ate my first post after a 404 - if you're interested, so we all get the less thought out response this time...

I am trying to set up a media center to access audio and video from the network, and I'm trying Fedora too. I installed Fedora first, and WinXP, now can't access Fedora installed with Grub bootloader. I changed the boot.ini file to point to the Linux partition, but get a hal.dll not found error. Found the multimedia prospects of Linux fairly dodgy so far, so I'm going with a dual-boot until I can make Linux act the way I want. Any help that doesn't involve installing a bootloader on XP would be helpful. If I can't get this to work with tweaks, I'm going to reinstall both, and do it the way I know from the start, but if anyone can help with links or tweaks before then, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

Rich

 

[CarltheUnholy]

Hey, this topic sort of fell off the map.

I use jumpers for two reasons....

Not all mobos support CS. Since I usually dump Linux on old machines, I find it useful simply to indicate which should be master and which should slave (unless you're that idiot from California who thinks those terms are derogatory, in which case, F*** you. ).

The other reason is, I'm just plain used to it. I'm 28, been doing IT for seven years now. I'm a dinosaur. When I was a kid, we didn't HAVE cable select, you whippersnappers.

 

[ntrights]

Simplest dualboot is to add another HD, install the linux on it and install lilo and you'r done. I had np with this method.

 

[cmpfzx1]

Alright, time for confessions. I have already install RH9 and allowed GRUB to config my dual boot. The problem is I cannot boot to XP (home) any longer. Have tried FIXMBR and still cannot load XP. Any help would be greatly apprc'd. TIA

PS - no boot disk 4 XPh; RH9 loads fine from Floppy.