Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 07:18:51 -0400 (EDT) From: rhh@ct.picker.com (Randall Hopper) To: jayrich@in.net (Jay Richmond) Cc: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: multiple operating systems (outline) Message-ID: <199606131118.HAA19962@elmer.picker.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.87.9606122141.A10174-0100000@su1.in.net> from "Jay Richmond" at Jun 12, 96 09:33:41 pm
index | next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail
The outline looks good to me -- just a few comments/possible
additions.
Jay Richmond:
>I. Pre-installation basic steps, partitioning your hard disk correctly
> for multiple OSs, that kindof stuff will come first.
> A. What to do first if you are currently running
> 1. Microsoft DOS (Windows 95)
> 2. IBM OS/2
> 3. Linux
> B. Large EIDE drives
> 1. Disk geometry
> 2. BIOS settings
> 3. etc.
>
Before describing what to do if people are already running OSs X and Y,
since the boot managers have different limitations, one thought would be to
list the boot managers available to them first, and then when going through
the OS list, enumerate which boot managers will work with that particular
OS. For details on limitations, they could consult a later section in the
document.
>II. Post-installation
> A. If you are already running FreeBSD and want to add more operating
> system(s)
> 1. FDISK, FIPS
> B. Comparison of FreeBSDs boot manager vs. LILO vs. OS/2 boot manager
> how to get them to work together if need be, that sort of thing
>
>III. Examples
> A. Win95+FreeBSD
> B. Win 95+OS/2+FreeBSD
> C. Linux+FreeBSD (why would you?)
> D. ???
>---
>
You might have a section describing disk slices and the booting process in
general terms. Maybe have an intro section that's just the basics ("X
slices per disk, code at the front of the disk boots to one of them" level
discussion) and then one that goes into how this happens and who does it,
following up with limitations of each boot manager based on this (e.g. disk
manager X won't support booting off partitions on other than the first
probed disk; if using BIOS LBA, why the booting slice must be < a remapped
[not physical] cylinder 1024). Maybe something like:
IV. Technical Details
A. The Booting Process
1. Overview
2. Details
B. Boot Manager Limitations
1. Booteasy
2. OS/BS 2.0B8
3. OS/2 Boot Manager
4. LILO
...
Probably some of the boot manager limitations would be presented before
this (maybe up in the "pre-section I" part I mentioned above -- things such
as some boot manaagers require the first cylinder to be free so they can
stick their boot code there, and other issues related to pre-installation
prep for a particular boot manager). But all the (known) benefits and
pitfalls of each boot manager could be consolidated in this technical
section.
BTW, I multiboot DOS, 2 versions of FreeBSD, Linux, and Windoze 95 off of
two LBAed IDE drives and a SCSI ZIP drive using OS/BS 2.0B8, so I'm
interested in this documentation and will try to keep up and help out any
way I can.
Randall Hopper
rhh@ct.picker.com
help
Want to link to this message? Use this
URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199606131118.HAA19962>