Re: loadlin problem

[Frank Barknecht <barknech@ph-cip.uni-koeln.de>]

Gregory Guthrie hat gesagt: // Gregory Guthrie wrote:

> I have a partition on my W95 hard disk with Debian loaded; and I boot via a
> floppy. I want to switch to booting from W95/DOS; so I tried loadlin.
> Put it into a directory with Linux, root.bin), and tried it.
>   loadlin linux root=/dev/ram initrd=root.bin
> 
> It won't work until one reboots into protected mode DOS first;
> unconvenient, but OK. (There are fast reboot tools for windows, seems like
> this would be a nicer way to go..)
> 
> It boots, but then it wants to do setup, more like a rescue/setup disk that
> a boot disk. Is there a better way?
> 
Win95 will have to shutdown its GUI if you want to boot linux, 
and this takes its time.
So a better way is to boot linux before you start the Win95-GUI.

I do this in the following way:
I have loadlin installed in C:\loadlin
There is a batch file, linux.bat which starts my Debian

c:\loadlin\linux.bat
>---------------------------------------------------------<
rem  DOS batch file to boot Debian Linux.

rem  First, ensure any unwritten disk buffers are flushed:
smartdrv /C

rem  Start the LOADLIN process:
c:\LOADLIN\loadlin  c:\LOADLIN\vmlinuz  root=/dev/hda6  ro  vga=normal
rem				^my kernel	^my root partition
>----------------------------------------------------------<



You should give loadlin the location of your root partition.
And you should copy the kernel from linux ("/vmlinuz") to your 
DOS-Partition in the directory where loadlin resides.

{ This might be tricky if you have not mounted your (v)fat(32) parts.
  Look at "man mount" for a description how to do this }

Test this batch file.

Now comes the tricky part.
I use a DOS-bootmenu in my config.sys and autoexec.bat to choose if
I want to start Linux or DOS\Win95.
    
    Normally I don't boot into the Win95-GUI directly but into DOS 7.0.
    To do this, I have changed my C:\MSDOS.SYS to include 
    
    [Options]
    BootGUI=0
    
    I don't know if the following aproach will work without that but: 
    Why not?


"c:\config.sys" defines the boot menu like this:
>---------------------------------------------------------<
[menu]
menuitem = WIN
menuitem = LINUX

[WIN]
rem 	Your Win95 stuff here like:
SHELL=C:\4DOS\4DOS.COM C:\4DOS

[LINUX]
rem Nothing here

[COMMON]
rem 	stuff for everyone e.g.:
device=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1)
Country=049,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys
rem 	German only!?
>---------------------------------------------------------<



and "c:\autoexec.bat" goes like that:
>---------------------------------------------------------<
IF "%config%" == "LINUX" GOTO linux       

rem	Win95 stuff first like:
SET BLASTER=A220 D3 I11

rem	then skip the linux part:
GOTO end

:linux
rem	here the call to loadlin
c:\loadlin\linux.bat

:end
rem 	If you need it, more Win95 stuff
>---------------------------------------------------------<

If you follow this approach, you can shutdown Win95 and hit 
Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot, the menu appears and now choose 
LINUX.

And at the first boot you can start linux without going into windows 
first. 

Hope this all is okay, at least here it works for centuries, nearly.

-- 
   	              		<a href="http://www.einblick.de/";>
  Frank Barknecht		Das Koelner Stadt- und Unimagazin
  >-------------<		</a>


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