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Re: Dual Boot

 
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Dual Boot

could it be possible t have an windows 7 and RHEL6 in a laptop??or should i say have a dual boot laptop with windows 7 and Redhat 6??

pls help me..I just want to practice my skills is redhat..thx
6 REPLIES 6
Matti_Kurkela
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: Dual Boot

Yes, it's possible.

But setting up a dual-boot system can be a bit tricky if you are not yet familiar with Linux concepts. Instead, you might install a virtualization tool (like VMware Player or Oracle VirtualBox - both are free) and install Linux to a virtual machine within your Windows installation.

If you choose to build a dual-boot system, you may first have to shrink your Windows partition, so that you can install Linux in the freed space: the RHEL installer has an option for this purpose, but it might be better to use Windows tools to shrink the Windows partitions in advance.

You should let RHEL6 install the GRUB bootloader into the Master Boot Record (the first block of the HDD): in this way, GRUB allows you to ignore the "active partition" setting in the partition table. It has been my experience that if Windows 7 boot partition is not set as active, the installation of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 will fail with a rather non-helpful error message.

When installing RHEL6 to a dual-boot system, you must be very careful in the disk partitioning step of the RHEL installation procedure.

Read at least the appropriate parts of the RHEL 6 Installation Guide *before* starting:

http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Installation_Guide/s1-diskpartsetup-x86.html

MK
MK

Re: Dual Boot

Thank you for answering my question.
yes i already tried to install it on vmware but redhat6 has virtual machine and i was not able to run it on the vmware because virtual machine will not run in another virtual machine. I want to set-up a workstation that will communicate with one another. I will install redhat6 and another redhat6 using kvm, so that i can practice using rsync and scp. My problem was when i start installing rhel6 it cannot detect the partition of my laptop, it detects the whole hard disk 500G,if I proceed,I'm sure that my windows will lose. So do I need to use a partition magic or any program that may help??
boukari
Frequent Advisor

Re: Dual Boot

of course RHEL will select the hole of disk .. because there's not the same file system RHEL6 use (ext3) and windows NTFS so installation will report you all disk like its free because no ext3 or other linux file system is deployed but also have 3 type of installation (using hole disk,advanced installation, install system with the others system).So, choose advanced installlation and try to be sure that u are choosing the right partition because installation will report what partition is used with (NTFS) and who is used with (FAT16-32) file system.

Choose the free partition, now about vmware i am not sure that i understand what do u mean by virtual machine dont work on virtual machine ( do you file imported virtual machine file).
use this PDF book, may apport more help :
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/pdf/Installation_Guide/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-6-Installation_Guide-en-US.pdf

Hope that Help Brother,
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iinfi1
Super Advisor

Re: Dual Boot

i suggest you use RHEL 5.6 or centos 5.5 on a vmware workstation 7.1.x (or similar desktop ) to practice your linux.
vmware workstation still doesnt support rhel 6 fully and we have had hell of a time making it work on workstation. RHEL 6 works like a charm on a standalone bare-metal though.

Matti_Kurkela
Honored Contributor

Re: Dual Boot

Hmm, perhaps your laptop's disk has been configured using Windows Dynamic Disk technology.

As far as I know, the Linux kernel supports Dynamic Disks, but I guess the RHEL6 installer doesn't.

However, it seems to be possible to convert the disk back to an ordinary "Basic Disk":

http://thecompletelinuxwizard.blogspot.com/2011/05/disk-part-in-dos.html

Find a Windows expert and have him/her check your laptop and the instructions linked above: if those instructions make sense and are applicable to your situation, then using them will probably be the first necessary step. (I'm not a Windows 7 expert!)

Apparently you don't need software like Partition Magic to resize Windows partitions any more: Windows can (finally) do it on its own.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/

MK
MK

Re: Dual Boot

Thank you so much for all giving time for this issue,i reaally appreciate it.Let me first try all you suggestion and I'll find out if this will work.