[TriLUG] install questions

[Daniel T. Chen]

On Tue, 17 Sep 2002, Michael Sh wrote:
> I have an older machine, Pentium 233 MMX, 256MB SDRAM, 512 cache, (2) Western Digital 8.4 GB HDD, 24X CDROM, 2X CDRW.
> I am presently running it as a Win ME machine, with the (C:\) drive (hda) set as "primary master" and the (D:\) drive (hdb) set as "primary slave".  The CDROM is set as the "secondary master", with the CDRW set as "secondary slave".

Hardware looks fine, all supported by the three kernels. Depending on
how much burning of CDs you plan to do under Linux, see:

http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/man/README/README.ATAPI
esp. the section on General hints.

> My intention is to run a tri-boot machine letting Slackware 8.1 and FreeBSD 4.6.2 split the second drive.

I assume you mean to tri-boot WinME/Linux/FreeBSD, no? That's
certainly feasible.

> I also have V-Com's System Commander 7.05 software available.

As long as this is a recent version, you should be fine. Both
GRUB and LILO are also capable of booting all three OSes.

> I ran RedHat 5.x a few years ago, successfully sharing a single drive with windoze and using an older version of system commander.
>
> 1. Should I change the harddrives so that C:\ is primary master and D:\ is secondary master?

See above url.

> 2. Should I use the  "System Commander" software?

See above. :)

> 3. Should I install Slackware or FreeBSD first?  Does it matter?

No matter, really. Always have Windows* installed before Linux/BSD,
and since you've already taken care of that, it's moot.

> This is a learning/re-learning experience, so I have no problem trying something and going back to scratch...any caveats, criticisms, or advice is appreciated.

G'luck. :)

---
Dan Chen                 crimsun at email.unc.edu
GPG key:   www.unc.edu/~crimsun/pubkey.gpg.asc