> if you mess up with lilo, and install it in the wrong place, you could
> corrupt the system so that the win system may be unbootable. There's
> documentation in the lilo docs about this.
>
> You could either use debian or redhat to boot with, but I'd think that you'd
> want to be really careful to always keep youre /etc/lilo.conf (or
> /etc/grub.conf, if you're using grub as a boot loader) in sync, and/or make
> sure you never ever run lilo/grub from one or the other place.
AFAIK, there is no such thing as /etc/grub.conf and you don't have to run
grub each time you set up a new kernel, because grub understands ext2
partitions.
So, with grub, I suspect there won't be any problems with your setup. You
just select the root device (ie. the partition where grub can find (yep
and it _can_ find them itself :-) your kernels)
So typically, what you would do is. Try not to fuck up the system during
install. If you do so, boot with your rescue disc and set your root to
your debian root partition...
# apt-get remove --purge lilo
# apt-get install grub grub-doc
; read the doc :-)
# grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/hda
; the --root-dir option is only necessary if you have a separate
; boot-partition (not in your case as I understood!)
; edit /boot/boot/grub menu.lst setting the
root (hd0,2) for all your redhat kernels
root (hd0,whichever_your_debian_boot/root_partition_will_be) for all your
debian kernels
If you choose /dev/hda5 for your debian boot (root), the second line
becomes root (hd0,5) for your debian kernels...
And then reboot into redhat and uninstall lilo there. If you compile a
new kernel in redhat, you can still use the tab completioning command line
interface of grub, without having to run grub as you have to run lilo
everytime!
> IIRC, you can only have 7 total partitions: 3 primary, and 4 logical (or is
> it the other way around?), so you may have to lt youre hda4 be one big
> partition for debian.
Is this so?? I thought you could have more logical ones...
Best regards,
Klaas
> Name Flags Partition type FS Type [label] Size(MB)
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> hda2 Primary linux ext2 [/boot] 24.68
> Unusable 57.58
> hda1 Boot Logical Win95 FAT32 (LBA) 3767.71
> hda4 Primary Win95 FAT32 (LBA [P^]c] 2097.45
> hda5 Logical Linux ext2 [/usr ] 2097.45
> hda6 Logical Linux ext2 [/ ] 1579.26
> hda7 Logical Linux Swap 74.03
> Logical Free Space 444.17
>
> I plan on deleting hda4 and partitioning it into /usr, /home, and root for
> Debian. By doing this, will I create problems by trying to boot the 3
> operating systems? I am assuming that Debian will control the boot
> process and allow me to enter red hat or windows...is this correct? Any
> potential problems and/or suggestions are very much appreciated. Thanks
> in advance,
