1st partiton on the HD for correct instalation?

Hi all

First of all, say that I am new to linux and Knoppix is fascinating.
I want to install it on my HD, but reading the FAQ´s I´ve seen tha the knoppix partition must be the "first" in the HD.
In my second, slave HD, I have already a partition for backup data from windows and a swap partition. If I create a new partioton for knoppix, it will be ok?? If not, there´s any solution to this?
2.- the bootloader will be installed in the master HD? How can I install the bootloader in a flopy disk?
Please help....

Thanks in advance

No, any partition will be fine, so long as It's marked 'Bootable' and is recognized in your BIOS.

It will simply write to your MBR (if you let it) and you'll be able to choose it from whichever bootloader you have. (by default, knoppix will install Lilo to your MBR. You can tell it not to do this during installation, however)

I myself run several operating systems on any given computer, accross multiple harddrives.

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the knoppix partition must be the "first" in the HD

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It's Windows that requires this, and it can be fooled with the proper bootloader settings.

Right now I have Linuxes on partitions 7, 8, 10, and 11 of one computer, and they all use 5 for swap and 6 for /home. (Partition 9 has NetBSD, which also does fine on a logical partition.) BIOS can only see 4 partitions, and I never mark one as active (bootable) - bootloaders don't need it.

Do you mind having LILO or GrUB in the Master Boot Record? They work great, honest! :D But sure, you can boot from a floppy. My other machine does this now (for WinME and some Unixes). I've been meaning to install to the MBR, but I've swapped hard drives in and out and haven't gotten around to it.

Also, bootloaders save the original MBR and can restore it if you don't like how they work.

Besides checking the documentation installed with Linux (man lilo and man grub) there's lots of info. at The Linux Documentation Project, for example http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/LILO.

Hope this helps!

-- Ed

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Originally Posted by mr_ed

Windows is the operating system that requires this, and it can be fooled with the proper bootloader settings.

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I don't think any OS really requires this (although Windows does have a bad additude when it installs some times). I have had multiple copies of the same version of Windows on the same hard drive and could boot between them with little trouble. What the "first" partition is isn't even clear. Would this mean the one closest to the inside or the outside of the disk? Would it mean the"first" on in the partition table, even if that was in the middle of the disk? Actually, you can't even define what the first entry in the partition table is, some MS os's read the partition table "top-down" while others read it "bottom-up". All you can really say is that there are 4 primary partition (and schemes to have more by maintaining the other partitions elsewhere and swapping them into the 4 slots as needed) and that a primary partition can be "extended" to hold multiple logical partitions. And many (but not all) MS OS's will even boot from a logical partition just fine (although MS doesn't advertise this and doing the install may take some tricks), as will Linux.