booting linux

[johnnymier]

Anybody knows if it is possible to install LILO (or any other boot manager) into a floppy?
The reason is I have linux and windows and I still use windows a lot, and I don't want LILO popping up every time I boot.

thanks

[preacherman481]

Hi,
Yes actually you can. I think both Redhat and Mandrake have utilities that let you make a boot disk. You can do it in Slackware with the 'makebootdisk' command. What distro are you using?

[Joey_Batch_File]

I use IcePack Linux and during the installation it is suggested you save the icepack boot manager on a floppy disk. I personally have it run of the hard drive, but I see why many would rather run it on a floppy. Can save you alot of headaches.

[problemchild]

The command in Red Hat and Mandrake is mkbootdisk.

However, that won't actually install lilo to the floppy disk so that you get your menu of boot options. To do that, edit /etc/lilo.conf and change the first line to read

boot=/dev/fd0

Then run /sbin/lilo and everything should be good as gold.

[daanzer]

Why dont u try out this tiney VMware -- Virtual Machine Software. which will give u the option to run your linux even if you are in windows. viceversa

Thanking u
Daanzer

[unixjim]

This is the easiest way.

1. Make a boot disk for your Linux distribution.
2. In DOS type 'fdisk /mbr' (This resets your main boot to the windows default)

Everytime you want to use Linux, just pop in your boot disk.

[ele5125]

in redhat you can make a boot disk with mkbootdisk. First determine what version of the kernel you have. Then use mkbootdisk

# uname -r
# mkbootdisk --device /dev/fd0 2.4.36-0.7

where 2.4.36-0.7 is the version number of your kernel as displayed with uname -r

you can also get the version number with

# cat /etc/lilo.conf

[johnnymier]

Thanks to everybody for your help, I am using mandrake 8.1, I used the mkbootdisk command and my problem was solved.