dual boot tips

so im thinking it about time to finally set up dual booting like ive been wanting to for awhile. ive already got the empty formatted partition, and i want to install gentoo on it. just wondering if anyone who's done a dual boot before had any tips/precautions to share, as ive never attempted this before.

do you mean like have two operating systems installed? I've done that before, it's pretty easy all you do is pick which OS you want to load when you boot. If this isn't what you're talking about, I'm stupid.

well i mean that but right now, only windows is installed, i have yet to install the other OS (gentoo)

i think she was looking for actual installation tips, not just one of the last steps after all the work is done... poker

Its pretty easy, make sure that whatever OSes you're installing will work together, and back up your hard drive before doing anything...

Good luck.

thanks bella but i wasn't sure if i knew what i thought she was talking about was right. anyway when I was installing the 2nd windows, all I did was instal it and during the installation it asks what folder you wish to instal to, or if you would like to format the drive.....

g'l.uck

its not a 2nd windows...its linux

[quote8240cfb732="PokerNerdAA"]anyway when I was installing the 2nd windows[/quote8240cfb732]
Why the hell would you install 2 copies of Windows? And you obviously can't help in this thread so please stop posting in it. Thank you.

Anyways, for my tips, when you install Gentoo, you might want to choose to make a bootable floppy instead of installing Lilo. As Lilo could screw up your Master Boot Record and you won't be able to boot at all. It's just the safe way to go, since you're new at dual booting. I'm not sure how the install process works with Gentoo, but it will usually give that option right after installation. Need any further clearing up, LMK wink

[quote992555e1e5="ajasax"][quote992555e1e5="PokerNerdAA"]anyway when I was installing the 2nd windows[/quote992555e1e5]
Why the hell would you install 2 copies of Windows? And you obviously can't help in this thread so please stop posting in it. Thank you.

Anyways, for my tips, when you install Gentoo, you might want to choose to make a bootable floppy instead of installing Lilo. As Lilo could screw up your Master Boot Record and you won't be able to boot at all. It's just the safe way to go, since you're new at dual booting. I'm not sure how the install process works with Gentoo, but it will usually give that option right after installation. Need any further clearing up, LMK wink[/quote992555e1e5]

I had two copies of windows installed because I was sharing a computer and wanted my own OS to screw up and put DesktopXP on and CurserXP and what not. I have no idea if Linux and Windows are similar in their setup or not, I was just saying my experiance installing mulitple operating systems. Just trying to be nice...

[quote33684eda76="PokerNerdAA"]I had two copies of windows installed because I was sharing a computer and wanted my own OS to screw up and put DesktopXP on and CurserXP and what not. I have no idea if Linux and Windows are similar in their setup or not, I was just saying my experiance installing mulitple operating systems. Just trying to be nice...[/quote33684eda76]
It depends on which Linux you install. Some distros. are more ppl-friendly while others are more complex and involved. But generally, installing Linux is more confusing than installing Windows.

i think the places i could use assistance in are installing the OS (which from the docs im reading seems to be nothing more than pop the cd in and follow the steps...albeit a few steps are a little beyond me), and then the boot loader and the possibility of a small partition for handling the boot loaders?...

edit ok i think im good for most everything now except for the number of partitions i need...i currently have a 20 gig partition set aside for the whole installation, but the docs talk about a boot partition, a swap partition, and a root partition. do i need to make those and format em before attempting to install this or can i make them during the install (as the gentoo docs suggest here http//www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/2005.1/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=4 )

The install should ask you before whether you want to create a partition for swap space. I'm not sure, but it might be required. The OS (kernel) uses this partition the same way the Windows has a place set aside for "virtual memory". It should be roughly 2x the amount of physical RAM you have installed.

As for the other partitions, those aren't required. So when you install, your hard drive should have 2 partitions the "swap" and the "/" root drive. Oh, and the swap should be the 1st partition on the hard drive.

erm...my first partition of the hd u mean...2nd to my windows partition? and if i have 2 gigs of physical ram do i really need a 4 gig swap space?

i always had problems trying to install Gentoo. After a while, I just tried Ubuntu.

I like Ubuntu. Looks a lot like a Mac though.

bleh ( well im about to attempt it so well find out how it goes for me heh. how long ago did u try to install gentoo?

Yeah, if you're installing linux on the same HD as Windows, then yes you'll actually have 3 partitions, sorry ) I don't think you necessarily need a 4GB swap space, but it's still a good idead to have at least a 128MB partition incase it's required (not sure), even though I highly doubt it since Linux isn't a resource hog like Windows. Good luck!

i don't know. probably like 6 months ago, and 6 months before that. each time, i had probems... If you burned the ISO on a CD, it works best burning it on the slowest setting your burner has (like 4x)

heh i burned it at 40x ( oh well. i hath entered the module and am currently on the formatting stage O

bleh, any hints on configuring networking for linux? it auto-configed it when i booted off the cd but when i had to config it for the actual installation i musta not done it right cuz i cant get out (

Sorry, never done linux


And i've had two versions of windows before......98 and xp

hmm turns out its not entirely not working. just dns isnt working...i can ping IPs just fine

nevermind, it was the 1 optional part in the installation guide that i decided to entirely not even look at...heh

I remember the nightmare I had installing Gentoo. My friend took over my computer remotely so he can semi-manually install it. Needless to say 2 hours later my hard drive drivers died in the middle of installation. ?

WAHHHH i completed installation and went to reboot and tada....invalid partition table li(lilililili please let someone know how to fix this...

i would install a diff linux than gentoo on your first time
what i did was install windows and leave a lot of room then install linux and auto partitioned the empty space.

well...i already installed it. and i had 20 gigs to install it in.

i followed gentoo's lilo settings, invalid partition table. i follow settings found on wikipedia, invalid partition table. shouldnt at least 1 of the OSes boot? what is so very invalid about my partition table?

do they overlap?

do what overlap? the 2 sets of instructions? they overlap a bit

alrighty, some progress hath been made...i can get into windows just fine if i disable the gentoo partition from being bootable. when i do this, i also get the menu selector asking which OS to boot from. xp comes up fine, but if i say to use gentoo it flashes a win 98 screen at me and asks how id like to startup in win98...O_o
so i enabled gentoo partition as bootable again and bam, invalid partition table. am i missing something? every doc ive found says to make it bootable but how the heck do u make that work without xp bitching?

[quote0bea930629="kyks17"]alrighty, some progress hath been made...i can get into windows just fine if i disable the gentoo partition from being bootable. when i do this, i also get the menu selector asking which OS to boot from. xp comes up fine, but if i say to use gentoo it flashes a win 98 screen at me and asks how id like to startup in win98...O_o
so i enabled gentoo partition as bootable again and bam, invalid partition table. am i missing something? every doc ive found says to make it bootable but how the heck do u make that work without xp bitching?[/quote0bea930629]

Which bootloader are you using? Grub or lilo?

Lilo right now but im open to suggestions

I've done a stage 3 gentoo installation and I used grub, so I couldn't help much considering I've never messed with lilo.

how did your grub installation go? did u follow gentoo's docs on it? did u have the gentoo boot partition enabled as bootable?

Followed this http//www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10 It was a little easier for me because I installed gentoo on a completly different hard drive, but as long as you map everything correctly in grub, it won't matter which partition is bootable.

so...but only 1 bootable partition per hd?

[quotea1c21f0e49="kyks17"]so...but only 1 bootable partition per hd?[/quotea1c21f0e49]

correct

hmm ok well im able to load it with grub but the thing is...it gets stuck after a sec. it tries to do "vesafb scrolling redraw" and cant get past it. anyone know what this means? (