Thread: Switching frm DualBoot to Slackware Ques

Originally Posted by NightSky

Currently I dual boot win98se/slackware12 ea on 160gb hdds
w/loadlin.
1. Is the dual boot setup different if I were to put win98se on 20gb partition and slackware12 on hde2 (140gb) and hdg1 (160gb)?

2. If I were to simply remove win98se and use both hdd for slackware12, how does it boot up as a stand alone?

3. If I choose XFCE as my default desktop can I still boot into GUI? Or is this option only available with kde and genome?

4. Do /swap and /var have to be primary partitions?

I’m glad you didn’t have to dual boot w/ XPpro like I did- GRRrrr!
I do not use loadlin as I have moved away from Windoze. I use "lilo" and find it quite gratifying. I will respond as if using that mode:
1) If using lilo each hard drive(hd) is effectively a logical device. Simply partition the drives for your Linux features required (i.e. /, /boot, /root, /home, /opt, /var, /tmp, etc. plus of course swap (3x memory). Note which partition you will boot from. Lilo is quite capable of allowing you to move stuff about but the system must be re-installed to match physical and logical partitions.
2) I will defer on this one as I use the master boot block in the "WINDOZ" partition but I do know you can do it in a Linux partition (see "Running Linux" or "Linux Essential" I think both cover this).
3) Why limit yourself. I have between 9-12 different window managers I can use from a script I call "wm". Basically this script points to each window mgr startup script and dumps it to initrc then does a startx. Thus you boot to a text window do: ./wm select the mgr desired and stand back. An yes you can setup things to allow you ot boot directly to the win mgr of choice.
4) /var does NOT need to be a primary. My recollection is that SWAP does but that does not seem correct as one can have multiple partitions for swap. Check one of those sources I mentioned.
PS– The only good Sys Admins on *nix keep lugubrious notes then wished they had made more.

Congrats on getting the oldest and best distro on the planet. I love Slackware!

Standalone linux installs are actually the best because Lilo is extremely low level, appearing just after POST level of priority. It is other and especially M$ other systems that tend to corrupt boot loaders including Lilo. Grub is more powerful and I have saved my bacon more than a few times with a grub floppy but it is a slightly steeper learning curve. Lilo is ubiquitous and very serviceable. In Slackware there is a command utility called "makebootdisk" or "makebootfloppy" that you can find in the "/sbin" directory however most people’s kernels have become too large to use a floppy but it is worth a try. Today the best backup booter is a mini distro or even full distro Live CD either on CD or, better, on a USB thumbdrive.

I have both Kubuntu and Slax on thumbdrives and they are incredibly useful and amazingly fast. Also the original Slackware CD or DVD can get you back up to fix things should your boot loader become broken. The one problem with grub and lilo on the original hard drive is the need to update especially Lilo by rerunning the "/sbin/lilo" command to activate new kernels or parameters such as changing of partition assignments. Even though "/dev/hdfoo" is vastlly superior to drive lettering problems still can occur such as with mobo’s bios differentiating between different drive types such as mixed SATA and PATA. It is possible to confuse your loader with which drive is considered "hda" vs/ "hde" and such. Offboard controllers do this too but can be overriden with a custom kernel config. Bottom line – cover your butt with some sort of rescue disk and try it out before a failure occurs. Peace of mind is priceless.

Finally I’d like to encourage you to continue to boot to command line. There is a very good reason Patrick chooses this as default and that is to protect you against xorg.conf failures and any kind of crash nonsense, rare but possible and also accelerated display drivers such as nVidia’s should be instaled and upgraded from console. As long as you can get to console all can be fixed. Slackware has the best utilization of runlevels of any distro. Don’t give it up easily. Here’s an easy way to get everything you want.

At the console type "kdm" or "gdm" which will bring up the display manger and gui login screen. I prefer kdm because in Slackware there is an option to fall back to console, presently "Ctrl N". KDM gives you a gui selector so you can easily access the many wm’s included in Slackware or ones you add on to try. The next time you boot all you have to do is hit the up arrow key and "kdm" will be called back with one stroke, "Enter" and you’re back at gui.

Hope this helps
Jimmy

PS Google for thumbdrive Live CD conversion tools if you don’t wish to learn how to do it manually. Here’s one
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/usb-ubu…-from-windows/