dual boot install q

[Rick Stevens]

On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 12:11 -0500, dkd brain wrote:
> I want to set up a dual boot install, and I am wondering how I should  
> format the drives. I have 2 hdd's in my pc, and want to install rhel  
> on 1 drive and winxp on the other drive.

Well, you need to install XP first, and make sure you install it on the
first drive.

Install RHEL second and make SURE you install it on /dev/hdb
(or /dev/sdb if you use SCSI or SATA drives).  When it comes to
installing the GRUB boot loader, make sure you install it on the MBR
of /dev/hda (or /dev/sda if you use SCSI or SATA).  grub knows how to
boot both Linux and Winbloze.

> Ideally, I would like to be able to use the rhel drive from winxp and  
> the winxp drive from rhel...

That is a problem.  There is no way you'll get Windows to see native
Linux partitions (remember, Microsoft would really like to think Linux
doesn't exist).  You could have the Linux installation use FAT32
filesystems rather than ext2 or ext3 filesystems, but then you suffer
the same problems as Windows (slow access and potential fragmentation).

> what would be the recommended drive formats for use in this scenario?

If all you want to do is move data between Linux and Windows, I'd set
aside part of the Windows or Linux disk (you choose) for that purpose.
Set that up as a FAT-32 or VFAT filesystem.  You can mount it as drive
D: under Windows or (for example) "/windata" under Linux.  Boot Linux
and write your data to /windata.  Boot Windows and you'll find the data
under D:\.

Note that if you use NTFS on the windows side, Linux will have limited
access to it.  You need the NTFS filesystem kernel module, and I
recommend do DON'T use it to WRITE data to NTFS.  That is problematic.
READING from NTFS is fine.  This is why I recommend a "shared" partition
that's formatted in FAT32 or VFAT.

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-                    I doubt, therefore I might be.                  -
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