OT: Anyone know a cheap place to buy Windows 98?

[Hugh Manatee]

Quite a bit off topic, but I trust this board's technical expertise.

it's one of these: Hitachi 120 GB IDE drives.

I want to set this up as a multi boot system with Windows 95, Windows XP, and linux.

The format will be something like this:

/dev/hda1: FAT12/16 for DOS
/dev/hda2: NTFS for Windows XP
/dev/hda3: ext3/ReiserFS for Linux "/"
/dev/hda4: (EXTENDED PARTITION)
/dev/hda5: ext3 for Linux "/home/"
/dev/hda6: NTFS/FAT32 for Windows XP "My Documents"

Maybe with another fat16 at the end of that. The first fat16 will be just over 2 GB, the NTFS 4 GB, the linux ext3 4GB(aprox, I haven't nailed down a distro yet), the extended partitions will house all my data and will take up most of the HD, the ntfs for XP will be around 40-60 GB, the ext3 around 30-40.

Now I was planning on using Knoppix and it's qparted or cfdisk programs to sort the HD into partitions first, then insall dos/win3.11/win95 upgrade, then XP then whatever linux I decide on in their respective places. But I've heard that it might be better to part one section, install an OS, part another, install, ect. Any advice regarding that? Also, I read that using a linux program to make windows parts. is a not so good idea. Can anyone clear this up for me beyond a shadow of a doubt? I really wuld like it if it were as simple as letting cfdisk or qparted do it all at once.

One more thing I need cleared up, when I'm section off the drive, will cfdisk format it to fat16/ntfs/ext3 right after I partition it(I'm pretty sure it does, just want to be sure), or will I have to do something else to set that up?

Ok, ONE more thing, ok I install the Dos/win OS first, then XP, will I have to **** with anything special to make it boot right or will the install proscess take care of that for me?

[Fyron]

Can't you find a copy of Windows 98 SE? Much better than 95.

There is nothing wrong with using the fdisk utilities that come on Windows CDs to create the partitions for Windows. The Linux alternatives work no better than they do at creating FAT or NTFS file systems, and they tend to be much more of a PITA to get to work properly...

[Will]

The problem is boot loaders. I haven't seen the WinXP boot loader present any options other than Windows NTFS or FAT(16|32) partitions. If there is a way to do it, please enlighten me.

Then again, grub is a bit difficult to set up properly. I haven't used lilo, so I can't comment on that.

Gandalf Parker uses Debian a lot (I think?), so maybe you can bug him until it all works for you

[Gandalf Parker]

Will said:
Gandalf Parker uses Debian a lot (I think?), so maybe you can bug him until it all works for you

Sorry. I take the easy way out. I have a 5 machine network. My Debian Linux server is just a server. My WinXp desktop is just a desktop. As a system admin Ive always avoided dual boots. In fact, to work around it for my wifes use, her machine has two cases with one keyboard/video/mouse and a KVM switch to go back and forth between the Win98se and Linux.

I do HIGHLY recommend keeping the arrangment of NTFS for the WinXP OS drive and keeping a FAT drive for things like games. It has saved me alot of grief. I hear in the newsGroups all the time about people saying that they miss their old games because they have WinXP but Im still running things like Stars and MoM on mine. But again I did it the chicken way. Full drives instead of partitions.

[Fyron]

I do HIGHLY recommend keeping the arrangment of NTFS for the WinXP OS drive and keeping a FAT drive for things like games. It has saved me alot of grief. I hear in the newsGroups all the time about people saying that they miss their old games because they have WinXP but Im still running things like Stars and MoM on mine.

I tried that, and all of my old DOS games ran no better from a FAT partition than they did from a NTFS one...

[Aiken]

Hugh, you'll need 1 more partition for linux swap (unless you have > 1Gb of RAM).

I would also suggest you to make separate partition for /boot.

Don't use win fdisk to make linux parts and nix fdisk to create win parts. Also don't use winxp fdisk to create dos partition. Best tool to create partitions for any win family is PQ (Symantec) Partition Manager.

Start your setup from installing win9x/DOS, then winxp, then linux. Where is no way to boot to linux from XP bootloader without geek tricks or OS manager, but GRUB should load win without problems. Just point it to win partitions during linux installation procedure.

So I'd suggest you following scheme:

/dev/hda1 - fat16/32 for DOS/win9x
/dev/hda2 - NTFS for winxp
/dev/hda3 - ext3/rFS for /boot
/dev/hda4 - for linux swap
/dev/hda5 - ext3/rFS for /
/dev/hda6 - extended
/dev/hda7 - NTFS/fat32 for My Docs
/dev/hda8 - ext3/rFS for /home

[Hugh Manatee]

ahhhhh....... I got no DOS.....I though one set of my floppies said Dos 5, but turns out they are just diagnostic discs Ah well. ****it. No Dos means no win3.11, no win3.11 means no win 95 upgrade, so that portion of the plan is borked. and I may as well forget installing Deian until I have a BB connection. I'll just make the XP partition and a second XP partition for data.....

[Fyron]

You might want to set the partitions up now, so you don't have to lose all data later when you get Debian... At the very least, format them with NTFS and have several smaller data partitions that you don't use unless necessary...

[Aiken]

You're too pessimistic, Hugh. Where are tons of images of dos bootable floppies in the net. Search for it.
And Deb is definetely Right System. You don't need BB to install Deb (this is a "feature" of source-based distros, like Sorcerer or Gentoo, while Deb is mostly binary distro). Order it on DVD. Cost: price of DVD disk + shipping.

[Hugh Manatee]

AHHHHH ****..... the second I finished installing XP I found a bunch of dos floppies in my closet..... ehh.... should I glass the drive and start over with the original plan or try to install the Dos/win3.11/95 now?