going to install linux: but i want to use ONLY ntloader instead of grub/lilo

[zobskyX]

plan to install mandrake 9, ..but this time, i don't want to have to install grub / lilo etc , ...

instead, i just want to add an entry for linux mandrake in the nt loader.

questions:
1i don't want grub / lilo on my mbr, ..so do i just install the loader on a bootfloppy initially, ..and later add an entry in ntloader
2. if <1> is the way to go, can someone who has actually done this let me know how, ..i have tried this before, but with no success
specifically, my question is what entry do i boot in boot.ini (the ntloader config file), ..it never seems to boot into linux correctly

3. my hard disk setup is

c: win98 5gb
d: winxp (ntfs) 30 gb
e: (fat32) 5gb


thanks

 

[TheOmegaCode]

There's a lot of different things you could do. Make a 10MB boot partition and put lilo there. A lot of people use boot floppies, which I guess are nice. You could, but I wouldn't, put linux on fat32 and boot to linux with the ntloader, and so on, and so forth.

 

[josphII]

ok this is easy

step 1: create a linux partition using partition magic (delete e: and convert the space to ext2)
step 2: instal linux making sure the boot loader is installed on the linux partition NOT on the beginning of the disk (NOT hda but hda6 or whatever)
step 3: also make a linux boot floppy during the instal
step 4: also during the instal edit lilo so you only have one entry (or two - the boot kernel and failsafe) and set the time to show lilo to like 0-3 seconds, whatever you prefer
step 5: boot using the linux boot disk and open up a super terminal and run the following line: "dd if=/dev/hda6 bs=512 count=1 of=/mnt/windows/linux.bin" - the partition (hda6) and output file directory (/mnt/windows/) might be different for you
step 6: edit the boot.ini file - add the line C:\linux.bin="Mandrake Linux 9.0" for example

now when you boot you will have three choices, win98, XP, or linux, and when you choose linux lilo will load but if you set the lilo display time only 1 second then you wont even notice it. and its good to give yourself 1-3 seconds so if you ever need to loadfailsafe (kinda like windows safe mode) you can do so

hope this helps

[edit] this is also covered in the faq here at anandtech and theres also a good walk through at littlewhitedog.com[/edit]

 

[MGMorden]

You can have an entry for Linux in NT's boot menu where you can just select it and never see LILO, but you HAVE to use some kind of loader, probably LILO or grub, even if you never see them (even putting linux on FAT32 will require that you use loadlin to get linux up and going). Basically when you configure LILO you want to install it to the root partition (or any other ext2 parition; it just needs to be on one) and configure it so that it boots linux by default and has no prompt or delay. Then add an NTloader entry for the parition that has lilo on it (and for a boot floppy you can change lilo's install target to /dev/fd0 and run lilo again. you might want to create a floppy with it's own kernel, but this is not required).

 

[DaHitman]

Check out the HOWTO's at the Linux documentation project.. there is a really good one on using the NT BOOTLOADER + LINUX:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/os.html#OSBOOT


Linuxnewbie.org has a couple really good booting how-to's as well..:
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/Booting_Your_OS

 

[Abzstrak]

the NT boot loader sucks, you should use grub or lilo ... learn to use something new, especially when its better. You can use them without linux too, just for windows.