Install slackware, free bsd and win2000

[zike huang]

Hi,
Does anyone try installing slackware, free bsd and win2000 advance server together in one PC? Do you think that this is possible? And what should I notice when doing this?

[Nico van Royen]

Basicly should be possible although I have no experience with *bsd myself.

I would first partition the disks so that you have 3 primary paritions (one for each OS). First install the W2K one, followed by bsd. At the end of Slackware (asuming they still use LILO as boot loader) you can configure the lilo boot loader to be able to also boot the other os's. (tell lilo to install itself on the mbr (master boot record)).
When the computer starts it will show the lilo boot prompt where you can boot one of the os's (where one can also be selected as default).

-NvR-

[U.SivaKumar_2]

Hi,
I read this recently.

"2.2.3.1 Disk Layouts for the i386
A PC disk can be divided into discrete chunks. These chunks are called partitions. By design, the PC only supports four partitions per disk. These partitions are called primary partitions. To work around this limitation and allow more than four partitions, a new partition type was created, the extended partition. A disk may contain only one extended partition. Special partitions, called logical partitions, can be created inside this extended partition.

Each partition has a partition ID, which is a number used to identify the type of data on the partition. FreeBSD partitions have the partition ID 165.

In general, each operating system that you use will identify partitions in a particular way. For example, DOS, and its descendants, like Windows, assign each primary and logical partition a drive letter, starting with C:.

FreeBSD must be installed into a primary partition. FreeBSD can keep all its data, including any files that you create, on this one partition. However, if you have multiple disks, then you can create a FreeBSD partition on all, or some, of them. When you install FreeBSD, you must have one partition available. This might be a blank partition that you have prepared, or it might be an existing partition that contains data that you no longer care about.

If you are already using all the partitions on all your disks, then you will have to free one of them for FreeBSD using the tools provided by the other operating systems you use (e.g., fdisk on DOS or Windows).

If you have a spare partition then you can use that. However, you may need to shrink one or more of your existing partitions first.

A minimal installation of FreeBSD takes as little as 100 MB of disk space. However, that is a very minimal install, leaving almost no space for your own files. A more realistic minimum is 250 MB without a graphical environment, and 350 MB or more if you want a graphical user interface. If you intend to install a lot of third party software as well, then you will need more space.

You can use a commercial tool such as Partition Magic to resize your partitions to make space for FreeBSD. The tools directory on the CDROM contains two free software tools which can carry out this task, FIPS and PResizer. Documentation for both of these is in the same directory.

Warning: Incorrect use of these tools can delete the data on your disk. Be sure that you have recent, working backups before using them.

Example 2-1. Using an existing partition unchanged

Suppose that you have a computer with a single 4 GB disk that already has a version of Windows installed, and you have split the disk into two drive letters, C: and D:, each of which is 2 GB in size. You have 1 GB of data on C:, and 0.5 GB of data on D:.

This means that your disk has two partitions on it, one per drive letter. You can copy all your existing data from D: to C:, which will free up the second partition, ready for FreeBSD.

Example 2-2. Shrinking an existing partition

Suppose that you have a computer with a single 4 GB disk, that already has a version of Windows installed. When you installed Windows you created one large partition, giving you a C: drive that is 4 GB in size. You are currently using 1.5 GB of space, and want FreeBSD to have 2 GB of space.

In order to install FreeBSD you will need to either:

Backup your Windows data, and then reinstall Windows, asking for a 2 GB partition at install time.

Use one of the tools such as Partition Magic, described above, to shrink your Windows partition"

regards,
U.SivaKumar

[Anonymous]

Is anybody familiar with this?

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=769591

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

AFAIK, it's possible, read HOWTOs for details:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+FreeBSD.html

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+WinNT.html

and others from http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/os.html#OSBOOT

Rgds,
Vitaly