Re: Win2K/ linux dual-boot

[Matthew Davidson]

There is an excellent GPL'd boot manager called XOSL
(http://www.xosl.org).  It can install on it's own partition, or
your windows partition.  It is absolutely brilliant.  When you set it
up, it presents you with a list of partitions on your machine, you
select which ones you want in your boot-up menu (they have to be
bootable, of course), and you're away.

Here's what I did, which is the easiest way of making a dual-boot system 
I've come across:

- Created a FAT32 partition (about half my hard drive - DiabloII needs
a lot of disk space) and installed windows as per usual.
- Install Debian on the remainder of the drive, to boot from a floppy.
- Install XOSL in Windows.  File away the floppy.

You still need to install lilo in your GNU/Linux setup, but I can't
recall having to alter the default config or do anything fancy to get
XOSL to kick-start it.

Good luck.
Matthew.

On Thu, Jul 05, 2001 at 12:25:18PM -0700, Nelson PC wrote:
> hey all.
> total newbie here never touched linux.  i am looking to remedy
> that by installing some flavour of linux/ unix on my Windows 2000 box.
> There is lots of documentation out there about installations w/ 98.
> Can't find anything about Win2K.  Who has this set-up, and is
> there anything special that a guy needs to know to pull it off?
> Cheerz.

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Re: debian solution's for donated computer

[Matthew Davidson]

On Thu, Aug 02, 2001 at 09:30:29AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>  My question is what should be included on a computer that is 
> being donated to give a new user experience and use of an old 386 
> or more?  Dean
> 

Short answer: Debian GNU/Linux.

I'm involved in a similar project (http://www.cat.org.au/pcan), in the
same country, so this story has been of great interest to me.  More
coverage here:

http://it.mycareer.com.au/news/2001/07/24/FFXJF9FPFPC.html?NWeeklyH

The silver lining of course is that if we want to avoid prosecution
we're going to have to install something other than windows on the PCs
we re-use.  My heart is broken about this, as you would expect.

There are a number of interesting possibilities:

- 386's would make good text-mode net-stations, using the
stunningly excellent links for web browsing.  Email is a problem, since
mutt is not newbie-friendly, and pine is not free software.

- There has been a lot going on with re-using 486's as X Servers.
There's some instructions on how to do this at
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue68/swieskowski.html, and there's the
GNU/Linux Terminal Server for Schools Project
(http://termserv.berlios.de/), which is still at an early stage, but
already has .debs available.

- Pentiums are fine desktop machines, I've got one at home that I try to
faze, and have no problem with it.  You do need a lot of RAM; 32 meg at
minimum, 48 really makes a difference.  Mine (actually a Cyrix
6x86) doesn't have a problem with Mozilla, GNOME, or anything else I've
thrown at it.  You want a light window manager - Enlightentment with
all the bells and whistles is asking a bit much, Sawfish or WMaker are
fine.

Really what's needed is a stripped-down Debian-based distro for hardware
reuse projects, with virtual packages like 'task-textnet' or
'task-xterminalserver'.  If anybody out there wants to co-operate on
assembling this, I'm in.

Matthew.

--
 Industrial Workers of the World - http://www.iww.org
-- Join the One Big Union! ---  
--
 Software should not have owners - http://www.gnu.org 
 Use Debian GNU/Linux - http://www.debian.org 
--
- Parramatta Computer Access Network (PCAN) --
- http://www.cat.org.au/pcan -
--