general knoppix questions, new user

[ishaim]

new to linux..

i checked it out after burning the iso, liked what i saw and chose the "install from CD" option.. can't remember the details of what i did after that..

IDEALLY.. i would like to keep windows as my default-booting OS, however i would like to install knoppix to my hard drive, so i can boot from my hard drive without the CD.. does it require a hard drive partition, and if i partition, will i still be able to boot windows?

what is "dual boot"?

thanks for reading

[Cuddles]

what is "dual boot"?

It is a way to boot two, or more, operating systems. It does not imply that the two, or more, operating systems be of two, or more, differing Manufacturers. i.e. you could dual boot a MS Windows 98, XP, and 2000, or differing operating systems, like, MS Windows XP, Mandrake, and Knoppix...

The process uses a "boot loader", that lets you decide which OS you want to boot, move the files to where then can be booted, or "point" to the location to be booted, and let the boot process for that selection take over... One of the same ( principle ideas ) of this is when you select "boot to DOS prompt" or "boot to Windows" from a menu in MS Windows. In this case, though, Windows simply copies boot files from a default location to the root of the boot drive, and lets the OS take it from there.

Examples, of what I know of, boot loaders are, LILO and GRUB, these being from the Linux side...

What a boot loader does, first, is give you the options of booting more than one operating system, and two, inserting the boot loader program inbetween the boot process - usually the boot process involves the BIOS to the Master Boot Record. With a boot loader, it changes from that to this: BIOS to Boot Loader to (whatever boot selection you made)

thanks for reading

No problem...

Glad I could (hopefully) help,
Ms. Cuddles

[ishaim]

wow i didn't know you could have two different versions of windows os' on the same drive, neat..

so i'm guessing the dual boot loader gives you the ability to switch between two OS' in one session, without having to restart?

The process uses a "boot loader", that lets you decide which OS you want to boot, move the files to where then can be booted, or "point" to the location to be booted, and let the boot process for that selection take over... One of the same ( principle ideas ) of this is when you select "boot to DOS prompt" or "boot to Windows" from a menu in MS Windows. In this case, though, Windows simply copies boot files from a default location to the root of the boot drive, and lets the OS take it from there.

can you go into detail as to why files are moved to where they can be booted?
when you say "point" to the location to be booted, are you referring to the partition on which you have linux installed?

sorry to inconvenience with my lack of knowledge, but my understanding of this statement is sketchy..

"In this case, though, Windows simply copies boot files from a default location to the root of the boot drive, and lets the OS take it from there."

i'm not sure, but i think i remember reading somewhere that individual partitions are organized in such a way that places the operating system's core files in the beginning of the partition? but that could be way off

thanks for the help

[Cuddles]

wow i didn't know you could have two different versions of windows os' on the same drive, neat..

Some can, not all, it depends on how the MSW's OS is setup, if it can run on a seperate drive, or partition, then yes -=- I don't think two OS's can reside on the same partition, or on the same drive without being on seperate partitions...

so i'm guessing the dual boot loader gives you the ability to switch between two OS' in one session, without having to restart?

Nope, most of the time, a boot loader is used during a "cold" or "warm" boot - i.e. a power on of the computer, or a restart of the OS - you can't get to a boot location unless you are booting...

can you go into detail as to why files are moved to where they can be booted?
when you say "point" to the location to be booted, are you referring to the partition on which you have linux installed?

In the case of Windows 98, the complete OS is in two files; MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS... IO.SYS is called by the boot, which in turn knows to look in autoexec.bat and config.sys files for configuration information - when you select Boot to DOS, Windows copies "template" autoexec.bat and config.sys files from a location to the root of the drive it boots off of, so that it can boot DOS only, when you want to go back to booting Windows98, the process then copies the "right" Windows autoexec.bat and config.sys files back to the root, and restarts the computer. This is what I meant when I said "files are moved to where they can be booted", as for the "location and pointing" thing, yes, Linux does that with either LILO or GRUB boot loaders - it knows which partition holds your OS boot files on, and then transferes control of the boot to that partition, when the selection is made...

sorry to inconvenience with my lack of knowledge, but my understanding of this statement is sketchy..

"In this case, though, Windows simply copies boot files from a default location to the root of the boot drive, and lets the OS take it from there."

See above in my example, and answer to your previous question, which is along these same lines...

i'm not sure, but i think i remember reading somewhere that individual partitions are organized in such a way that places the operating system's core files in the beginning of the partition? but that could be way off

Windows does that, in fact, most of MS's OS's require the boot sector to be right at the front of the drive, and can not extend over a certain length... I don't think Linux has this problem, I don't think MAC's have this problem, nor did IBM's OS/2 or Warp... I think its only a MSW's thing...

Hopefully, this helped,
Ms. Cuddles