On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 13:56, Steve Swezy
Unless you have a special love for Ubuntu or it supports some hardware that the others do not support, I would wipe Ubuntu as well. See the windows comments below for why.
OK, you convinced me on that one.
You can always install Ubuntu afterwards...
When you install WinXP, it is going to overwrite the MBR. You'll then need to reinstall grub to get the Linux installs to boot. You can use the Windows bootloader to boot Linux, there are instructions on this floating on the web. The prefered order for installing Windows and Linux on a machine is install Windows first, then add Linux as you see fit. Remember that Windows needs to be installed on a primary partition. If adding more than one Linux distribution, make sure that grub for the secondary Linux install is on the partition of that install and mot the disk MBR, You can then amend the grub of the primary Linux install to chainload the grub of the secondary install. Also note that you may need a swap partition for the Linux install. This swap partition can be shared between the different Linux install.
Hope you are not overwhelmed by the info here. Remember, you can always search the mailing list archives for info. Most of the problems you are going to encounter have already been solved ages ago and we are here to help newbies who seen the light ((-:
Thanks for your help. It looks like I should just start over. I need to study up to learn about the MBR, what a swap partition is, how to put the grub in and how to chainload them.
Should I format the whole HD, install Win, and then use openSUSE to create more partitions...or create two addl. partitions with Windows? Starting over would be easier, especially if you are not currently using that machine to read this list. I would start by installing windows into a partition created by windows. Then install oS11.1[1]. You only two partitions for this. One for / and the other for swap. / can be 10GiB and swap 1 or 2GiB dependent on the amount of ram you have. As Carlos noted, you will have to use the 'expert' mode to create your partitions in oS11.1. Just take your time and read the options on each screen. If you install Windows 1st and then oS11.1 it should pick up the Windows installation automagically and add it to grub. The grub for oS11.1 should be installed in the disk's MBR as Carlos said. When you install FC10, tell it to install grub in the partition where it, FC10, is installed. You will then have to amend the oS11.1 grub to chainload FC10. But first get the windows and oS11.1 install done, play around in oS11.1 to familiarize yourself with linux, and then do the FC10 install.
This is what appears in my primary grub.conf from FC3: title openSUSE Chainload rootnoverify (hd2,5) chainloader +1 My /boot/grub/menu.1st then has: title openSUSE 11 Old root (hd2,5) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.16-0.1-pae root=/dev/sdc6 vga=869 noprobe initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.16-0.1-pae title openSUSE 11 root (hd2,5) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.20-0.1-pae root=/dev/sdc6 vga=869 noprobe initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.20-0.1-pae Yours will be different, but you can see what we are trying to get across. HTH [1] oS = openSUSE ne... -- Registered Linux User # 125653 (http://counter.li.org) Now accepting personal mail for GMail invites. Samuel Goldwyn - "I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead." -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org