[NTLUG:Discuss] A lilo FILE

[Josh Miller]

No I was actually pushing lilo.

The point being that non-ms loaders change the bootsector as a matter of 
neccesity. While the MS-NT(style) NTLOADER, along the the MS versions of 
fdisk, just seem to assume that the bootloader is already setup the way they 
need to be.  I ran several versions of linux before I finally decided to 
actually use it. I would install it one weekend tinker then need the HD 
space for somethign else.. Diablo or soemother massive install game.  Point 
is, if your primarilly an NT user you can't just delete a partition that has 
a nonMS loader with out getting some problems.  The solution I have found to 
be the best when setting up dual boots for others at this time is..

creat a file with
dd fr=/dev/zero of=/mnt/floppy/boot.lnx bs=512 count=1
then modify your lilo.conf
there shoudl be a line that says either /dev/hda /dev/hda? for your boot 
partition.  change this to point to your boot.lnx fiel we just made.
Now Ntloader has the ability to treat files of this size as well 
bootsectors.  So if you reboot into NT copy the file to your c:\ you can 
then add it to c:\boot.ini line "c:\bootsect.lnx="Linux" "

I would assume this would be possible with other bootloaders.

When I was trying to find that syntax, I also saw a suggestion of useing the 
same method to create a swapfile on a partition, Rather then a partition to 
swap on.

If anyone has tried to make other loaders NT compatable in this manor let me 
know I would be interested to hear them.

- Josh


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