Re: Install to disk w/school's NT present??
On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 02:12:39 PST, Kenward wrote:
> Odd thing in the setup. WinNT was placed in as hda1, with a small DOS
> logical following (hda4? IIRC). I partitioned the rest of the disk into 5
> logicals inc. swap. (Where are hda2 and 3?)
1-4 are primary, 5 and higher are logical. Linux fdisk allows you to
define logical partitions without having first having defined an
extended partition (a type of primary partition) to contain the logical
partitions. This is dubious, but usually works. DOS fdisk enforces
explicitly pre-defining extended partitions before logicals are
created. If you use linux fdisk to create logicals, just remember to
create an extended first.
Another distinction is that DOS fdisk allows writing non-sequential
partition numbers (hda1 hda4), while Linux fdisk enforces sequential
numbering (hda1, hda2) when writing. So, that (hda1, hda4) you have
was obviously created with DOS fdisk, because linux fdisk would've
written it as (hda1, hda2). This is important because partition
numbers "slide down" when a lower numbered one of the same type
(primary or logical) is deleted when using Linux fdisk. I've heard the
latest commercial Partition Magic software supports partition
renumbering.
Linux fdisk has another oddity: you can flag multiple partitions
active. Don't ask me why. What will happen if you do this is the
active partition will boot.
The four primary partition limit is a limitation of PC design. ide
drives allow up to 63 partitions to be created, scsi drives up to15.
> I wanted to control the boot with LILO instead of a boot floppy.
>
> On installation was told LILO won't work on a logical, and should it be
> placed on hda2? I said yes. Also yes to Linux being default.
hda2 is the root ( "/" ) partition, presumably. This is typical.
An important note is that lilo only boots from primary partitions.
There is a commercial boot loader, System Commander, that overcomes
this limitation, but lilo does not claim to support that:
--------/usr/doc/lilo/Manual.txt.gz-----------
It _can't_ be stored at any of the following locations:
[..]
- boot sector of a logical partition in an extended partition.*
[..]
*LILO can be forced to put the boot sector on such a partition by using
the -b option or the BOOT variable. However, only few programs that
operate as master boot records support booting from a logical
partition.
-----------------------------------------
So, if you want a multi-partition linux, you might have something like
this:
hda1 nt
hda2 linux /
hda3 extended
hda5 linux swap
hda6 linux /var
hda7 linux /home
hda8 linux /usr
You could also just put everything on "/" plus swap.
> On reboot, set up LILO with WinNT as first in the lilo.conf list. Works
> perfectly.
>
> Where is hda2??? is this the MBR? Is this an iffy proposition w.r.t.
> stability?
MBR (master boot record) is the boot record for hda (the whole drive).
One advantage of installing lilo on /dev/hda2 in the above example is
that you can change which os boots by just changing the "active"
partition, which is easy from linux or dos fdisk (even a dos boot
floppy with dos fdisk.) This is a very flexible setup for situations
where multi-booting is desired.
/usr/doc/lilo/Manual.txt.gz is terse and gangly, but a definitive
resource.
--
David
dstern@u.washington.edu
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