On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 02:53:57PM +0200, Siva shanmugam wrote: > > > What would be a good optimized way to partition a 40 GB IDE > harddisk for desktop use. The system may contain the following > OS. > > 1) Windows XP (to run windows based applications) > 2) RH (use daily) > 3) Freebsd (to experiment) > 4) Someother linux distro (to experiment). >
You would be needing at least 3 primary and one extended parti- tion to have a system of this sort. I have not tried so many OSs along with XP, but with Win-98 on hda1, I managed six OSs of which two (Pygmy Linux and QNX) were installed within the 9x partition itself. Multiboot was achieved with loadlin. Things can get a bit tricky with XP, since it invariably grabs the MBR, and multi booting through boot.ini (much more diffi- cult than NT or 2k) would need boot records of other OSs avail- able. Secondly, you would NOT be having write access to the XP partition from the other OSs. If you use 9x instead of XP, things would be easier to control. You have the option of multi-booting under grub, loadlin or LILO. Be a bit wary of FreeBSD as well. FreeBSD fdisk left some overlaps after doing its job, and I had to remark the partition boundaries under Linux fdisk subsequently. > > Is it required that the boot files of a operating system should > be within 1024 cylinders? > This would not pose a problem except perhaps under older versions of LILO. To have XP running without complaining, you may have to resort to multiboot with boot.ini. Bish -- : ####[ GNU/Linux One Stanza Tip (LOST) ]####################### Sub : Lesser known commands (pinky) LOST #350 "Who fingered Pinky ?" ... You probably know of who and finger but have you heard of 'pinky' ? Just type "pinky" and see. It is from the GNU sh-utils package. ####[usmbish (at) users.sourceforge.net]###################### : ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _______________________________________________ linux-india-help mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-help
