ok here's the deel
10.1GIG drive
+----------------------+
| |
| |
| 8GIG FAT32 partition |
| (Windows 95/98) |
| |
| |
+----------------------+
| |
| 2GIG Linux Native |
| (Root Partition) |
| |
+----------------------+
| |
| 20MEG Linux Native |
| (var Partition) |
| |
+----------------------+
| |
| 128MEG Linux swap |
| (swap Partition) |
| |
+----------------------+
now the numbers for the partition sizes are somewhat
of a religous issue. (well for swap) - i've found that
(4 me) if u r actually utilizing swap space that totals
a size larger than u're physical memory - it's time for
a memory upgrade...
i didn't bother making a seperate partition for /home or
/usr but it's important 2 make a seperate partition 4 /var
as unmaintained logfiles can grow 2 astronomical proportions.
oh - do NOT use fat16 - linux reads VFAT & FAT32 - if u r
relegated to VFAT (pre windows 95 OSR2) then u cannot make
any single windows partition larger than 2GIG. Also FAT32
makes more efficient use of large disks.
now on 2 the meat of the matter - get a win95 boot floppy
with fdisk and format on it. (if u r gonna use win98 make
sure u have the win98 version of format & fdisk - that way
u can do fat32 and make u're windows drive 1 big drive instead
of 4 smaller ones)
boot the pc - and use windows fdisk to make the windows
partition ONLY. format it. install windows 95.
next - start your linux install - at this point u now use
linux fdisk (or disk druid if u like) to make the linux
partitions. in the above example - the partitions are
referred to as follows:
hda1 :fat32 8GB (or vfat i guess if u used that)
hda2 :Linux Native 2GB
hda3 :Linux Native 20MB
hda4 :Linux Swap 128MB
next - specify hda2 as your root partition (mount point /)
specify hda3 as your var partition (mount point /var)
specify hda4 as your swap partition.
next - this is important - do NOT write the boot loader to
hda1. you do not want to write ANYTHING to hda1 - write it
to hda2. (your question should now be - well how tha hell
do i boot linux without a floppy?)
well there's a slick little dos utility called loadlin -
hope u read through all of this before u start - u've got to
download loadlin.exe. and put it in the linux directory of your
windows drive.
once u have got linux installed - mount the windows partition
<mount /dev/hda1 /win95) (plz create the win95 dir prior 2 this)
then do <mkdir /win95/linux> copy the kernel to the /win95/linux
directory.
now - thats it for the linux part. now sindows
edit your config.sys 4 multi boot - ie:
___________________________________________________
[menu]
menuitem=Linux, Boot Linux Kernel ver. 5.1
menuitem=Win98, Boot Windows98
menucolor=40,33
menudefault=Linux, 5
[Linux]
shell=c:\linux\loadlin.exe c:\linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2
[Win98]
<whatever wuz in your config.sys before>
_____________________________________________________
this should give u a nice little menu with a choice of booting linux
and win95(8) - default iz linux after 5 sec. if u don't make a selection
(u might wanna change that to 0.00000001) :)
this iz only 1 of many ways 2 skin a cat, i'm sure nonetheless i hope it
helps
- my apologies 4 the delayed response...
______________________________________________________________________________
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV wrote:
> Hiy'all,
>
> Right then. I've actually been following Linux for about 4 or 5 years now,
> (probably closer to 4 than 5), but it's only been recently that I'm now in
> a position to get a system that I can use up and running. (Until recently,
> if a blind person like me and others wanted to get running on linux, it
> involved a second computer connected as a terminal and logging in that way,
> and I just didn't have the hardware.) OK, so here I am, getting ready to
> put together a new system, I have Slackware 3.6, which I got because I
> figure it's probably the distribution I'll learn the most from (never mind
> that it may well be the most difficult to maintain.....no RPM's, no GUI,
> but who needs a gui anyway?). Right. Anyway, the new system will be an AMD
> K6-2-350; 128MB RAM; and a 10.1GB hard drive. On this system, I want to
> also run Windows 95...well...more of necessity, in some cases. ...I'm no
> Bill Gates fan, and good going on Refund Day. ...
>
> So I've read a bit on the howto's regarding multi-boot installations, and
> I'm not exactly sure how this information will apply to me. From what I can
> gather anyway, I want to set up a Linux partition (or three...file systems
> for root, /usr and /home...although I've used Unix shell Internet access
> for a while, bear with the "uh...I'm not very familiar with all the inner
> workings, beyond 'it's easy to break stuff if you're not careful'...")
> Likely these at least will be native Linux file systems partitions, I
> suppose totaling about 2GB in size to start. The rest of the drive will
> then be formated FAT16, partially so that both Linux and Win95 can have
> access to them, and partly because I'm not sure which way things will go as
> far as eventual configuration--which OS will have the lion's share of disk
> space, and so on. Of course, one of these FAT16 partitions will boot Win95.
>
> Now, for the really stupid newbie questions mentioned in the subject line.
>
> 1) Is it easier to load Win95 first, or Linux first? Or which should go on
> the first partition? I read something about anything that is going to be
> bootable had better be in the first 524MB of disk space, or else it won't
> boot. So does this mean that I have to split things up a bit (I.E. a root
> partition with Lilo and stuff on it, then Win95, then the rest of the Linux
> file systems, then the rest of my FAT16 drives)? Or am I completely missing
> the boat on this one (on which point I wouldn't be surprised)?
>
> Further to that, should I even have any swap partition? If so, how large?
> I'll probably mostly be running in command-line apps from bash or tcsh...X
> might come along later, once I actually start learning a bit more and/or an
> X screen reader project that's going gets to a usable form.
>
> I think once I get a handle on these, I might be able to proceed OK. Of
> course, I'm probably wrong there, too...but that's OK :)
>
> Thanks muchly. Apologies for the rambling. Beddie-bye time for me. :)
>
> Buddy
