[ale] OT:Hard Drive Switcher

[Greg]

I have loaded Suse via the MS startup menu (granted, only with NT4 and
Windows 2k Pro), I have loaded all first thru grub then the MS "loader" and
then into Win98 or Win2k ... etc etc .  I would suggest grub, as you don't
have to worry about the /boot being in the first little slice of the disk
(someone please correct me if I am wrong).  There are also other boot
loaders than grub and lilo, one in particular (don't have the link, sorry)
seemed to be able to boot any and every thing under the sun.  I would load
Suse now with one disk, get my XP, load XP, add my Suse disk and re-install
or just have my Suse disk as the primary and edit grub to point to the MS
disk for your XP needs - or have my XP disk point to Suse (dunno about XP,
but NT4 and Window 2k pro make this easy).

If you have any problems, hit the list - I am certain you can get good and
fast advice as many on it dual-boot.

You might also want to use Suse for your music needs - that's what I am
doing as Suse apps are 1)free with Suse 2)provide more choices for all
aspects of sound production/whatever 3)run on an OS that doesn't suck up the
cycles (try running a minimum windows manager or even a command line vs MS's
bloated OS or even KDE/GNOME to save cycles) and 4)are free with the
distribution.  Did I mention Suse/Linux apps cost less than MS ones ?

Well, good luck and don't worry - this isn't too hard.

Greg

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org]On Behalf Of Ryan
> Williams
> Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 10:05 AM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [ale] OT:Hard Drive Switcher
>
>
> > Are you talking about something where you can turn a knob and switch
> > between
> > OS's ???  If so, then it will never work, as stuff loaded in RAM for
> > one OS
> > won't work with the other one.  The article seems to not mention that
> > you
> > still have to log out, stop the box, flip the switch and then boot up
> > again
> > to switch OS's
>
> Actually, it does mention that somewhere I think. At least, I realized
> that was the case. You would shut down, flip the switch and reboot.
>
> > - so what's different from dual booting and putting one OS on
> > one drive and the other OS on the other drive ???  Dual booting these
> > days
> > is incredibly simple - just remember to install Windows first then
> > Linux.
>
> To be honest, I'm just a bit clueless when it comes to messing with PC
> bios (being primarily a MacOSX guy). I've used *nix remotely for years,
> but this is my first time doing my own install. So, this just seemed
> like the simpler option. It's also a logistical issue with software.
> I've been told time and time again to load XP first before adding
> linux. I'm putting the PC together this weekend and wanted to load SuSE
> on to play with, but the copy of XP I ordered won't arrive until next
> week. Impatience. :) This PC will primarily be used for linux -- only
> booting into win on the odd occasion I need it for music production
> apps. I'm irritated enough by the idea of having to use win for some
> things, so having to wait on it before I can do anything else is even
> more annoying.
>
> But you bring up a good point. If you have two drives and install linux
> on one and win on the other, does it really matter that the linux
> install is existent before you install XP? Is either linux or win going
> to want to be on the master drive (I assumed both would, hence the
> switching question). Ultimately, it's not a big deal. I can always wipe
> the drives and reinstall everything once I get my XP disc. I can just
> do a test SuSE install this weekend to make sure everything works.
>
> Sorry. Though I've been doing remote FreeBSD/Linux server admin for
> years, I'm pretty much a desktop linux newbie.
>
> Ryan
>
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