Fw: [plug] Hard Drives

[Matt Kemner]

On Sat, 26 Jun 1999, Trevor Phillips wrote:

> An alternative that I use, is to use loadlin and boot Linux from "DOS".

I'm amazed there aren't more people using this :)

Especially when the reason for Windows is because you have other family
members that use the computer, a config.sys menu is a much nicer interface
for them than making them type "win" at the LILO prompt.

I've got this system set up at home

For those who are interested in setting something like this up, the steps
are:

1) Find yourself a copy of loadlin.exe and put it, along with a copy of
   your kernel, on your FAT partition. (I use C:\LINUX, and call the
   kernel vmlinuz)
2) Create a batch file eg linux.bat that contains:

   @echo off
   C:\LINUX\LOADLIN C:\LINUX\VMLINUZ root=/dev/hda2 ro

   change the root= to point to your linux partition. The ro tells loadlin
   to load the partition read only (required for fsck)
3) Edit your C:\MSDOS.SYS
   You will need to make it non-system, non-hidden, non-readonly first
   The steps are:
   attrib -s -h -r msdos.sys
   edit msdos.sys
   attrib +s +h +r msdos.sys
   You will want to change the line that says "BootGUI=1" -> change to 0.
   This tells Windows to boot into DOS only.
4) Edit your C:\CONFIG.SYS so it looks like:
   [MENU]
   MENUITEM=Win, Windows
   MENUITEM=Linux, Linux
   MENUITEM=DOS, DOS Only

   [WIN]
   DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /testmem:off /v
   DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS /v
   DOS=HIGH,UMB

   [DOS]
   DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /testmem:off /v
   DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS /v
   SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM C:\ /E:600 /P
   DOS=HIGH,UMB

   [LINUX]
   SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM /C C:\LINUX\LINUX.BAT

5) Edit your C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT to look like:
   @echo off
   if not %config% == WIN goto skip
   C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM
   :skip
6) When you reboot, you should now get a menu giving you 3 options.
   The first (WIN) will load into Windows, the second into Linux
   and the third into DOS.
   If you add the line:
   MENUDEFAULT=LINUX, 60
   To the [MENU] section (ie just below the MENUITEM lines) then if no
   keys are pressed in 60 seconds, Linux will be loaded by default.

Another advantage of using this sytem, is that if you want to try out a
new kernel, all you need to do is copy the new (b)zImage to C:\LINUX\NEW
Then boot into DOS using the menu above, and run
C:\LINUX\LOADLIN C:\LINUX\NEW root=/dev/hda2 ro

That way if it works, you can replace "vmlinuz" with "new" but if it
doesn't, all you need to do is reboot and the system will boot straight
back into your old kernel. (After choosing "Linux" that is :)

 - Matt