Dual boot - Vista and Fedora - How come it works for me?

Here's my question -

How come, despite most everything I've read on the web about this, my dual boot of Vista Home Premium 32bit and Fedora 8 (Werewolf) x86_64 is working completely with no issues?

I installed Vista first, used disk management to make a 64gb partition, put in my Live distro to load and configure my settings, then installed to the now unallocated partition. Grub installed to the MBR (this is where the web claims that the process fouls up) and I configured it to default to Vista - I share this PC with the family currently, and linux would make them panic - and did a reboot.

Everything is working fine, its stable, no errors.

Why is it working for me?

(Below are the sites I visited to lead me to believe it was going to foul up somewhere.)

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=88029
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-...sta-linux.html
http://apcmag.com/5022/dualbooting_vista_and_linux
http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=839960
http://help.lockergnome.com/linux/du...ict468309.html

Now, I had absolutely no trouble with anything other than an unallocatable 5mb sector of my HDD. (I assume this was unallocatable because it was needed to seperate the NTFS partitions from the linux partitions.) One sector, 5mb, big deal. :)

None of the troubles I see other people having I'm experiencing at all. Now, I'm assuming (and inflating my own ego) that my expertise in Vista (lol) has let me somehow keep from misconfiguring something in the setup of the dual boot?

Seriously, I see so many nightmares (and had 2 customers call in today with similar problems) but everyone swears that I have a fluke.

Hmmm,

The only obvious thing that I can see which might explain it, is that you are running Vista 32bit and a 64bit Linux distro.

I just don't see that being the solution. o.O

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How come, despite most everything I've read on the web about this, my dual boot of Vista Home Premium 32bit and Fedora 8 (Werewolf) x86_64 is working completely with no issues?

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I don't see this as a problem. Your MY son :D !!

Gore! My PFY :drink: this is where you come in, tell my son that if its working to leave it the f*** alone :p

And heya nihil? Whats happinin?

Hi ae~ how are y'all?

I see you've sent the apprentice for us to lick into shape :D:lildevil:

Hey, za~ I wasn't saying that was a reason, as I have absolutely no technical argument to support that. It was merely an observation that in the threads you linked it seemed that the guys were all trying to dual boot 32 bit versions and you were not.

It was the only obvious difference that I could see.

Well he is making more money with his knowledge now than I do. Apprentice? nah... I would say closer to junior journeyman. But yeah... whip him into shape, show him no mercy... lol

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Well he is making more money with his knowledge now than I do.

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Yeah, I bet. Anyway it is nice for a father and son to have at least one common interest, I never had any with my father.

Lots of common interests actually.


But, you're right that they were trying to do 2 32bit versions. I'm just puzzled, almost to the point that I'm willing to contact Microsoft to ask.

"Hello, why can I dualboot your Vista OS and Fedora 8?"

MS Rep - "We forgot to turn on the MBR Killswitch on your installation, we'll have that fixed shortly."

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Originally Posted by zallison

Here's my question -

How come, despite most everything I've read on the web about this, my dual boot of Vista Home Premium 32bit and Fedora 8 (Werewolf) x86_64 is working completely with no issues?

I installed Vista first, used disk management to make a 64gb partition, put in my Live distro to load and configure my settings, then installed to the now unallocated partition. Grub installed to the MBR (this is where the web claims that the process fouls up) and I configured it to default to Vista - I share this PC with the family currently, and linux would make them panic - and did a reboot.

Everything is working fine, its stable, no errors.

Why is it working for me?

(Below are the sites I visited to lead me to believe it was going to foul up somewhere.)

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=88029
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-...sta-linux.html
http://apcmag.com/5022/dualbooting_vista_and_linux
http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=839960
http://help.lockergnome.com/linux/du...ict468309.html

Now, I had absolutely no trouble with anything other than an unallocatable 5mb sector of my HDD. (I assume this was unallocatable because it was needed to seperate the NTFS partitions from the linux partitions.) One sector, 5mb, big deal. :)

None of the troubles I see other people having I'm experiencing at all. Now, I'm assuming (and inflating my own ego) that my expertise in Vista (lol) has let me somehow keep from misconfiguring something in the setup of the dual boot?

Seriously, I see so many nightmares (and had 2 customers call in today with similar problems) but everyone swears that I have a fluke.

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Hi, I am a new Linux user and I also have VISTA home premium and a computer that is 32bit. I would like to install Fedora but I'm not sure how.
Would you be able to provide me the steps you did to successfully install
Fedora in my system? Thanks in advanced!!!

Well, this is a first time for me... Someone complaining that something works right... But, to please you I can help:

su
rootpassword
cfdisk
delete
enter
rm -rf /*

That should break it for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aeallison

Gore! My PFY

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PFY? Someone wants to have an OD of exlax dropped in their coffee and krazy glue added to their butt crack I see ;)

HA that is totally justified for bumping this thread =)

The novice guy bumped it, but I had to add that.

Fedora named their latest release "Werewolf" ???? The wolfman didn't know this!

THE WOLFMAN LIKES!!!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gore

Well, this is a first time for me... Someone complaining that something works right... But, to please you I can help:

su
rootpassword
cfdisk
delete
enter
rm -rf /*

That should break it for you.

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Hi there, I'm not really sure what you mean when you gave me all these directions. I have not installed Fedora yet but I do want to install it. I'm actually looking for steps on how to install Fedora. Thanks again.

You put the CD in, reboot, then use the mouse to select English and click the right arrow button on the screen and continue to do so until it reboots after installation.

For dual booting you select the option of use the REST of the HD, and it detects Windows and adds it to the boot manager for you.

You could also look in the "other" tutorials menu, I've amde about 5 or more just for installing Linux and dual booting with Windows.

lmao

Thanks.

I do what I can ;)

Ok, I'm late with this one, but:
Are you sure Fedora 8 loaded Grub to the MBR ?

Unlike Windows, Linux is much better at playing nice with other OSs.

When Linux is being placed on a single hard drive with another OS already installed many distros will now detect this and default to installing Grub to the boot partition of the distro rather then the MBR and make that partition bootable ( active. ) ( this can be checked with fdisk after the install: just don't allow it tho change anything! A warning for the novice: fdisk, or as Gore chose, cfdisk, can really break things! If you don't know what you are doing, don't use them! )

( BTW, if a particular distro does not default to doing it this way, just choose the advanced options for Grub when installing the OS and you should be able to choose that option. Or choose the advanced options to see exactly where the distro chose to install Grub, then change as necessary. )

So briefly, if you have say two partitions, the first with Windows and the second with Linux, the BIOS will find Grub on the only bootable ( active ) partition ( the second ), and Grub can give you the choice of which OS to load. If you choose Windows ( on the first partition ) Grub will then try to load it from the MBR which it has not touched, thus making Windows happy.
If you choose Linux, it will avoid the Windows stuff all together.

( This does not work on really old hardware or old versions of Grub )

The easiest way to avoid trouble has always been to install Windows first.
Even if installing on separate drives, install windows on the primary master, then just switch the drives to make the Linux drive primary master.

Any chance this is what happened?