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Get to the root of dual boot

If you want to run a "dual-boot" system (Linux and DOS or Windows or both), you need to rearrange (repartition) your disk to make room for Linux. If you're wise, you'll back up everything before you start re-partitioning your drive.

If you have in EIDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive (normal these days), check your computer's BIOS to see if it has the capability to boot from the CD-ROM drive. Most computers made after mid-1997 can do this. If boot from CD-ROM is supported, change the BIOS settings so that the CD-ROM is checked for a bootable media first. If you have a SCSI CD-ROM drive, you can often still boot from it but it gets a bit more motherboard/BIOS dependent. Those who know enough to spend the extra Rupees on a SCSI CD-ROM drive probably know enough to figure it out.

Insert the bootable Linux CD-ROM into the drive and reboot the system. You're finally started with the Installation.

The basic parts of an installable distribution are the README and FAQ files. These will usually be located in the top-level or root directory of your distribution's CD-ROM and be readable once the CD-ROM has been mounted under Linux. (Depending on how the CD-ROM was generated, they may even be visible under DOS/Windows.) It is a good idea to read these files as soon as you have access to them, to become aware of important updates or changes.

The next most important part of the distribution will be a number of boot disk images (often in a subdirectory '/boot' and '/dosutils'). If your CD-ROM is not bootable, one of these is the file that you will write to a floppy to create the boot disk (/dosutils). You'll select one of the above boot disk images, depending on the type of hardware that you have in your system.

The issue here is that some hardware drivers conflict with each other in strange ways, and instead of attempting to debug hardware problems on your system during installation, it's easier to use a boot floppy image with only the drivers you need enabled. (This will have the nice side effect of making your kernel smaller and thus easily loaded onto a floppy as well as increased speed while initialising the kernel from memory.)

A rescue disk image is another necessity that is normally included in the CD-ROM for Installation and post Installation purposes. This is a disk containing a basic kernel and tools for disaster recovery in case something trashes the kernel or boot block of your hard disk.

RAWRITE.EXE is an MS-DOS program that will write the contents of a file (such as a boot disk image) directly to a floppy, without regard to format. You only need RAWRITE.EXE if you plan to create your boot and root floppies from an MS-DOS system. This is very common these days and besides, since most individuals like to have Linux co-existing along with their Windows systems, they may require a boot disk to allow them access after their MBR has been erased or replaced by Windows. If you have access to a UNIX workstation with a floppy drive or a UNIX or Linux Guru instead, you can create the floppies from there, using the `dd' command, or possibly a vendor-provided build script.

The purpose of the boot disk is to get your machine ready to load the root or installation disks, which in turn are just devices for preparing your hard disk and copying portions of the CD-ROM to it. If your CD-ROM is bootable, you can boot it and skip right to preparing your disk.

Angirasa Acharya
[email protected]

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