David E. Scott wrote: > > Rob, > Nice to know you were successful in installing Win95 into a > Linux-based > system. I see you're using multiple physical drives to do that. In my > case, I was trying something of the reverse. I have a Win95B/FAT32 > system in a 5GIG drive. I used Partition Magic to downsize the FAT32 > partition and then used PM's BootManager (from IBM) at the top of the > drive. That was primary partition #2. Then I put an 800M dos partition > just above the FAT32 partition (primary partition #3). Then used the > remaining 1.5G for Linux - first putting in an extended partition > (primary partition #4), and then subdividing it into a small linux swap > partition and the rest (almost 1.4G) for linux proper. > I have Debian 1.3.1 and tried several times to get it installed > without > success. > I also have RedHat and tried installing it, and selecting the checkbox > for "everything" and it went in without a hitch. However, xwindows > didn't have the same clean screen that I see under Win95. After > experimenting with RedHat for a while, I decided to retry Debian. Well, > this time I got it to the point where dselect would run, but then got > over ambitious in trying to install everything, just like RedHat, and > Wow! what a mess!
The Debian distribution is very large - you're far better served to install the base system only for an initial installation, and then choose e few packages at a time to install. If you take this approach, your chances of success will improve ... vastly. > Finally I decided to retry RedHat since it had been successful in the > past, but this time at the LiLo prompt I took a wrong turn and tho linux > would boot after that, I couldn't boot into the Win95 partition anymore. > After from late nite research by the nearest linux person I know to talk > to live, he discovered that on the DOS side, using the DOS rescue > diskette, it's possible to use the dos fdisk command to rewrite the > master boot record and reclaim bootability of the Win95 partition. The > command is a:>fdisk /mbr (return) and reboot. When next you install Debian, have it install lilo and during your first re-boot edit /etc/lilo.conf (I'll attach a copy of mine) and re-run lilo. This will allow you to boot either WinBloat95 or Linux (or NT or OS/2 or whatever - run man lilo for details). > At this point, the linux support guy is back in school and unavailable > for further assistance. Thus, I'm about to resize the Win95 partition > back to the full drive and forget trying linux, but I'd really rather > keep trying, but two items I need to be sure of: bootability of the > win95 partition and I'd also like to be able to convert the 800M dos > partition into a bootable partition so I could migrate my Win3.1 stuff > to it and run it there, and also use the win3.1 partition as a staging > area between linux and Win95, since linux (without the fat32 patch) > doesn't yet support fat32 in the standard distribution. > Once linux supports fat32, I'm wondering if it would make more sense > to > try to use loadlin and softboot into linux instead of trying to use that > IBM boot manager? If so, has anyone have any experience in doing that? > What are the pros and cons? Lots of people do that and like the results. I prefer to let lilo manage things, but of course YMMV. I think it's cleaner to the the boot manager (lilo) manage booting and each OS manage its slice(s). In any case, as long as your e-mail is functinal, I think you'll find that the response of this list will get you running and keep you running better than any other resource (other than a personal Guru) that I can think of. Besides this list is smarter than even my old Guru. Something to do with collective mind. HTH > > Dave > > > Pure Energy wrote: > > > > Just so others on the list are aware... I have various drives on one of my > > systems with the first hard drive containing win3.11 and the rest linux > > ext2. I had the win95 upgrade sitting on the shielf for the last year and > > decided to finally set it up. > > > > It installed safely without touching any other drives (tho the generic > > drivers it uses didn't find a single device, all of which i had to install > > manually :) ). > > > > Anyhow just a note for others that win95 didn't give me any problems > > concerning booting linux or messing up the linux drives. > > > > -- > --David E. Scott Ohio Administrative Services > [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- > TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] . > Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . -- ----------------------------------------- Ralph Winslow [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mary bought a pair of skates upon the ice to frisk now wasn't that a crazy way her sweet young *? -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
