NT & Linux

[mikebw at bilow.bilow.uu.ids.net (Mike Bilow)]

Dan Murphy wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:

 DM> I found some doc on boot.ini and the whole NT boot process.
 DM> Then found this in the NT Resource guide:

 DM> "UNIX cannot be an alternate operating system; only MS-DOS
 DM> and OS/2 can be used as alternates."

 DM> Hmmmm, is this really true?

Yes and no.

 DM> The way I imagined booting Linux was to have the NT boot
 DM> manager start LILO on the second drive, which would then
 DM> boot Linux. Sound OK? Or, am I just going to have to boot
 DM> Linux from a floppy? Welsh's "Running Linux" said things may
 DM> be a bit tricky with OS/2 and NT and gave a few hints. 

OS/2 is not especially tricky, and the OS/2 Boot Manager will support booting
NT.  The NT loader does not support loading OS/2, however.

 DM> Right now as a test, I'm just trying to use the NT boot
 DM> manager to boot DOS on the second drive, and am not doing
 DM> real great. The second drive is formatted with DOS boot
 DM> files, but the system just crashes when I direct the boot
 DM> manager to boot from the second drive. I'm missing a file
 DM> named bootsect.dos and am trying to find it now. The
 DM> resource guide says bootsect.dos is needed to boot an
 DM> alternate OS, even if the OS isn't DOS. 

 DM> Any insights?

As far as I know -- and I'm no NT expert -- the BOOTSECT.DOS issue applies to
alternating DOS and NT *from the same partition*, what OS/2 calls "Dual Boot."

As a practical matter, what you want to do is install LILO as your main boot
manager.  Getting LILO to boot Linux from one partition and NT from another
partition is a supported procedure in the LILO documentation.  In this
configuration, LILO resides in its own special partition.
 
-- Mike