Windows XP and Arch Linux

How do I install both Windows XP and Arch Linux on my system? I want to be able to boot either of the two from a menu that loads after the bios. I have created 4 partitions (NTFS, linux root, linux swap, linux home) and installed Windows XP on the NTFS system, as well as Linux on the other partitions. How do I go about the booting process? Are there any better ways of doing this than as above?
Kirk
PS How do I make a user supervisor in Arch Linux? When I try and reboot under my made user, I do not have sufficient rights.

kirkl_uk wrote:How do I install both Windows XP and Arch Linux on my system? I want to be able to boot either of the two from a menu that loads after the bios. I have created 4 partitions (NTFS, linux root, linux swap, linux home) and installed Windows XP on the NTFS system, as well as Linux on the other partitions. How do I go about the booting process? Are there any better ways of doing this than as above?
Just add the following in your /boot/grub/menu.lst
# (1) Windoze XP
title Windows XP Professional
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
I assume from your description that you installed XP on the 1st partition of your 1st disc. If not, replace hd0,0 according to your setup.
kirkl_uk wrote:PS How do I make a user supervisor in Arch Linux? When I try and reboot under my made user, I do not have sufficient rights.
Just add that user in the root group in /etc/group. Or you can install sudo & 'man sudo' for details.
However, believe me, you don't want to do something like that. In windoze if you try to delete, ie the windows folder through explorer it'll stop you, pointing that this is evil. In linux you can easily call a 'rm -rf /' (as root) and wipe your disc out .
So better stick to a non-root user for everyday usage and su (or sudo) when you need root-access for a task.

Similar Messages

Dual booting Windows 8 and Arch Linux with UEFI

Hi all!
I'm trying to install Arch Linux on my computer where I already have Windows 8, and I'm getting a little stuck when it comes to the partitioning.
Following the beginner's guide and the method here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … n_in_Linux for setting up the partitions properly, regarding UEFI. My problem is that when using cgdisk to set up a new EFI system partition (ef00), I get an error message when trying to write the partition table (just saying that something went wrong). I figure the problem is that I already have a partition like this (correct me if I'm wrong), but it really looks like it succeded (see info below). So my question is: How do I preceed to keep my Windows 8 installation happy, but installing Arch? Do I remove the old EFI system partition and create a new one, or is there some method that allows me to edit the already existing one, to allow me to dual boot Windows 8 and Arch?
My partition table now looks like this:
Part. # Size Partition Type Partition Name
1007KB free space
1 500MB Windows RE Basic data partition
2 300MB EFI System EFI system partition (this one was already present on my system)
3 128MB Microsoft reserved Microsoft reserved partition
4 63.5GB Microsoft basic data Basic data partition
8 512MB EFI System EFI System partition (this is the one I tried to create when I got the error message)
5 29.5GB Linux filesystem Arch (this is where I was going to put my Arch installation)
6 22GB Windows RE Basic data partition
7 1024MB Windows RE Basic data partition
615KB free space
Just for the record; I only created partition #8 and #5.
Any help is appreciated! And sorry for beeing a total noob, but I really suck at this.

sudo make sandwich wrote:If it is possible to share ESP between OSes, how do I do this (would it be sufficent to follow this section: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide#For_UEFI_motherboards)?
There's really very little to do to share an ESP between OSes. Most OS installers will auto-detect the ESP and use it. Problem solved. For Arch it may be a bit more effort just because Arch uses a more hands-on installation process, but I've only done a couple of Arch installations, and the last one was several months ago, so I don't recall the details clearly enough to comment.
And how big will the partition need to be? The beginner's guide says 512MB or higher.
I don't know what was in the mind of the author, but my guess is that's because that's roughly the cutoff point where mkdosfs starts creating FAT32 by default rather than FAT16. The ESP is officially supposed to be FAT32, not FAT16, although FAT16 usually works OK. It's also possible to create FAT32 on smaller partitions by using an explicit option to mkdosfs ("-F 32").
The optimal size of the ESP depends on the files stored on it. If you don't store your Linux kernels, something as small as 100MiB is usually adequate; but a few Linux kernels and their initrd files can consume twice that amount. My own recommendation is for the ESP to be 200-500MiB.
The only error message I got from cgdisk is "Problem saving data! Your partition table may be damaged!", however booting Windows again works fine. Parted did not complain about antything.
Use the "verify" function in cgdisk. That will reveal any problems with the data structures. If a verify turns up OK, then that means that cgdisk ran into some sort of disk problem. Running gdisk rather than cgdisk and using the gdisk "w" option (without making any changes) may produce a more helpful error message.

[SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

Ok so I'm stuck trying to get my computer to dual boot windows 7 and arch. They are installed on different hard drives and I have grub 2 as the boot loader. I can't find any tutorials on how to do it with seperate hard drives I know how to do it if they are on the same hard drive. Also I want windows on the "first" hard drive how do I check to see which one it considers the first?
Last edited by bdawg (2012-09-21 23:15:37)

DSpider wrote:
drobole wrote:If you want to change it so that sda becomes sdb and sdb becomes sda, you should be able to do that in BIOS.
Not from the BIOS. He would need to physically open up the computer and switch the cables between them (or add another drive).
There's no actual performance increase in changing this order. Performance increase is when you have the partitions as close to the beginning of a HDD as possible, where the platters spin faster (basic mechanics, not to be confused with CD/DVD, which are being written from the inside-out to prevent errors after extended usage), and it especially doesn't apply to SSDs whatsoever.
You may be right about that. I remember I had to do this a while back but I probably switched the cables. It also messed up the drive mapping in Windows 98 if I remember correctly.

[Solved]dual boot windows 7 and arch linux

I have successfully installed arch linux dual boot with the original win7 on my PC. If I only use linux, then the system works well. The problem is that once I boot into Win7 then after reboot, the linux boot manager will stop working and the system always boots into windows automatically. My guess is Win7 automatically repair the boot loader.
My current solution is whenever I have finished using Windows, I'll boot with my linux USB installation, and run "gummiboot --path=/boot install". Afterwards, linux will work fine. But I believe there must be a better solution. Any help will be appreciated.
I have UEFI board by the way.
Last edited by jl2014 (2015-04-19 17:35:57)

Thanks for all your help first! I have tried Head_on_a_Stick's suggestions as the first step. Here is what I did. I have created :
$ cat /boot/loader/entries/windows.conf
title Windows
efi /EFI/hidden/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
The window boot path was :
/boot/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
and I changed
/boot/EFI/Microsoft
to
/boot/EFI/hidden
After reboot, I clicked 'Windows' option on the linux boot manager. Below are the error messages:
Windows failed to start.
File: \EFI\Microsoft/Boot/BCD
Info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data.
Any idea what goes wrong?
I'll try other suggestions soon. Thanks all of you again.
Last edited by jl2014 (2015-04-19 00:03:33)

Windows 7 and Arch linux dual boot problem

hey guys I had an issue with windows 7 dual booted with arch and i was just wondering my windows 7 crashed. I had Reinstalled windows OS and all my partitions are set up but now when I try to boot up arch I cant at all cause windows Boot took over and i have no way of getting into arch is there anyway i can fix this or maybe reinstall arch without loseing my home folder with all my data, or is there just and easyer way to fix this issue im stuck. thank you all for your support as i am a noob

You need to re-install grub. When you reinstalled Windows it will overwrite grub preventing you booting Arch. You'll need to boot from a liveCD and chroot into your Arch installation. details for recovering grub are in the wiki - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … stallation

Dual boot Windows 7 (64) and Arch Linux (64) problems

Hello:
I am new to Arch Linux and just finished installing the 64bit on my laptop. It had a prebuilt Windows 7 (64) installed which I kept but split the hdd from 160Gb to 80Gb and 80Gb. I installed Arch there and set 4 partitions, all of them as Logical - a 64 MB ext2 /boot partition; a 512 MB swap partition; a 15 GB root partition; and the rest as my /home partition. My partitions look like this:
Disk Drive: /dev/sda
Size: 160041885696 bytes, 160.0 GB
Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 19457
Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
sda1 Primary Unknown (27) 12889.02
sda2 Boot Primary NTFS 106.93
sda3 Primary NTFS [] 73915.11*
sda5 Logical Linux ext2 65.81*
sda6 Logical Linux 509.97*
sda7 Logical Linux ext2 15002.92*
sda8 Logical Linux ext2 57549.55*
The install was succesful(this was running from the core install cd) and I installed GRUB to my /boot but when I restarted it loaded Windows 7. I have used Knoppix USB disc to boot and see my Arch Linux install files and edited the /boot/gur/menu.lst file.
In Windows I installed EasyBCD 1.7.2 and tried to get NeoGrub bootloader working as a dual boot. I tried getting rid of the boot flag for Windows with cfdisk and setting it to my (Logical) sda5. That did not work. So far the only way I have booted into my Arch Linux install has been by going to the Live CD, choosing "Boot from Existing Linux Install" and editing the command files there.
root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
My goal is to get a dual boot working for Windows 7 and Arch Linux 64 and continue installing the Xorg and KDE to Arch. I just don't know what the problem is here. I don't mind reinstalling Arch if something went wrong, but I would like to keep my Windows running in order and add Arch on.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I ran the LiveCD and chose "Install to MBR hd0". I ended up with this:
setup hd(0,1)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists.....yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/iso9660_stage1_5" exists.....yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/iso9660_stage1_5 (hd0,1)".....failed(this is not fatal)
Running "embed /boot/grub/iso9660_stage1_5 (hd16)".....failed(this is not fatal)
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0,1) /boot/grub/stage2 p (hd0,1) boot/grub/menu.lst".....failed
Error 31: File is not sector aligned
My entry for Windows into the menu.lst looks like this:
# (0) Arch Linux x64
title Arch Linux x64
root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/3841273c-d91e-41d6-9dbf-716a15d03a01 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux x64
title Arch Linux x64 Fallback
root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/3841273c-d91e-41d6-9dbf-716a15d03a01 ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img
# (2) Windows 7
title Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Dual Boot Windows 7 and Arch with Shared NTFS partition.

Hi everyone,
I want to dual boot windows 7 and Arch Linux.
Here's the problem... my hard drive isn't the biggest. I want to store all my music, movies, pictures, and documents on partition that both linux and windows can access seamlessly.
I want the partition to be NTFS. -- (the programs that map an ext4 drive to Windows are trash).
Here's what I think I need.
30GB NTFS to Windows.
30GB ext4 to Arch Linux
The remainder (190ish GB) to Shared Data.
I don't want the swap partition because I have a SSD and 4GB of RAM.
What is the best way to setup my partitions? And is this even possible?
Thanks!

Not a problem. I would create:
First of four primary partitions for windows.
Second of four primary partitions for /boot
Third of four partitions is an extended partition encompassing all the space not used by the first two partitions.
Put everything else inside the extended partition.
Mine is a bit more complicated, but this should give you an idea:
ewaller@odin:~ 1005 %sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Password:
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x87b33479
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 121778159 60888056 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 597366784 625135615 13884416 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 121778160 597366783 237794312 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 * 121778223 123770219 995998+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 123770283 131770589 4000153+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 193213818 597360959 202073571 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 131781258 193213754 30716248+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 131770591 131781194 5302 1 FAT12
Partition table entries are not in disk order
ewaller@odin:~ 1006 %
Partitions 1 and 2 are Primary partitions. Partition 3 is an extended partition. All the others live in partition 3

Dual boot Windows 7 and Arch from 2 seperate drives (UEFI)

Hello everyone, I've been working on installing Arch to a secondary hard drive for the past few hours, but I am trying to make sure I won't mess up my Windows 7 install. I have found several topics talking about dual booting Windows 7 and Arch, but not a whole lot on booting them from separate drives. My drives are currently setup as follows.
sda (120GB SSD for Windows 7)
sda1 (100MB System Reserved NTFS partition)
sda2 (Windows 7 install)
sdb (1TB HDD for Windows programs, files, etc)
sdb1 (1TB NTFS partition)
sdc (1TB HDD)
sdc1 (boot 512MB FAT32)
sdc2 (root 500MB ext4)
sdc3 (home 300GB ext4)
sdc4 (swap 10GB)
rest unallocated "free space"
I used Gparted to create the partitions. I ended up getting hung up on the "Create Filesystems" sections, specifically this line"
# mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdXY
Now that I am looking at it, I'm thinking the "Create Filesystems" section maybe isn't necessary because I've used Gparted?
If it isn't necessary, when I get to the "mount the EFI System Partition to /boot" section, would I simply use
# mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/boot
instead of
# mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/boot ?
The way I had this setup with Ubuntu was 3 partitions on sdc (/, home, swap) and I set my PC to boot to the sdc drive on startup. The boot loader would then give me the option to boot into Ubuntu or Windows 7, and I never had to alter the sda or sdb drives at all. Is this possible through Arch? My thinking is that even if it isn't, I should still be able to enter the BIOS boot menu and select which drive to boot manually correct? That wouldn't be too big of a deal for me because I spend 90% of my time in Linux, and only use Windows for Photoshop and gaming occasionally.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I would have just tested this out, but I am afraid of messing up my Windows install.

After several sleepless hours I had to give up and go to bed about 5 hours ago. The installation process went smoothly (or so I thought). I followed the tutorial closely and upon rebooting I was met with a blinking cursor. After some googling I found others who said I should press TAB, but nothing seemed to work.
I rebooted to the iso disk and found the "boot installed OS" option and noticed it said "Press TAB to edit". I then found the boot parameters and tried everything from hd0 0 to hd4 4. I believe I have Grub setup correctly because every option besides hd0 0 either says "Booting..." and then gets stuck, or says "That disk and partition combination does not exist". So yea, I think hd0 0 is the correct boot path, it just gets stuck with the blinking cursor.
silverhammermba wrote:
You have the right idea. You want to install a bootloader on sdc1 which will be able to boot both Arch and Windows.
Your best bet would be to use something like rEFInd. It has a "scanfor" option that should automatically detect your BIOS-configured Windows installation and add a boot option for it. Note that depending on your motherboard, you may have to switch to UEFI-only mode and Windows will be unbootable without the assistance of a UEFI program which is backwards compatible with BIOS (like rEFInd).
Thank you for the link. Considering I can't get into my install and the actual install only took about 30 minutes, I think I am going to just start from the beginning again with REFIndr. It seems much simpler. I only used Grub because I've used it before with Ubuntu, but my very limited knowledge is telling me Grub is probably the problem.
MoonSwan wrote:Just an idea: My bios has a "Boot-up Prompt" which I can invoke when it's POSTing by hitting F11. This brings me to a menu that allows me to choose which drive I want to boot up that day. I use it when Syslinux isn't working properly (Which is right now as a matter of fact ...) in order to boot Windows so I can do some SCII, for example. I, too, dual-boot but I have both OSes on different SSDs. So my 120GB Crucial SSD has Arch on it and the 240GB Kingston has Windows, SCII, Portable Apps, etc and nary the two shall meet. It makes dual-booting easier in the case of a corrupt OS or MBR or what-have-you. You may want to give your Bios a better look to see if you can do the F11 trick. It probably can and will usually tell you so at POST by printing that information on-screen along with your drives-detected and other messages (I hit Pause sometimes to read all the POST messages).
This is exactly what I was talking about doing when I mentioned:
My thinking is that even if it isn't, I should still be able to enter the BIOS boot menu and select which drive to boot manually correct?
That's good to know, because even if this next install doesn't work I think if I pull the other drives I should be able to get it working fairly easily.
Thanks again everyone.

Rubix - yet another distro based on Slackware and Arch Linux

Today I was reading DistroWatch and saw info about Rubix.
This distro is based on Slackware and Arch Linux.
What do you think about this?

I tried it.
I really liked the install. Very simple and straightforward.
I didn't like fact that the rubix installer installs only one package at a time (and pulls in the deps of course), so the install is rather slow.
I also didn't like the repo structure. Seems cumbersome.
bonuses:
e17 installed easy, and just worked.
packages available are pretty reasonable
I really like the modifications rubix has made to rc.conf and some of the inits
There is some type of community repository
The distro seems to have a clear focus, and I like many of the security aspects.
bummers:
extra rc<int>.d directories
No gdm. boo-hiss.
No gnome (I get it. this is slackware. boo-hiss).
My fonts looked ugly. This one is such a huge deal for me, that I consider it a showstopper. Might be the fact that I installed it in vmware, but most distros have little issue with this. <caveat. I think arch fonts suck too. I have never had good looking fonts in arch...which is why I have only really used it as a server.>
Did I mention I didn't like the repo structure? It made the simple act of updating pacman repos (pacman -Sy) slow and painful.

Windows Xp and Unbreakable Linux

Anybody with an idea if its possible to have windows xp and unbreakable linux on the same system, tried it once but had problems with it maybe i did something wrong am not sure, i just need confirmation so i dont lose my files if it isnt possible. Anybody with experience on it. Have done it with windows xp and rhel 3 and it worked well.Thanks

If you are not going to use VMware do the following:
Install XP first with some partition space for Linux (15GB?)
!!!!Follow with caution, as fdisk can destroy all your data!!!
Then start linux install, select the non-window partition, format, create mount points- the usual stuff.
When it comes to grub, make sure you select the advanced grub options, and select " install on first partition of boot sector" . Select Windows XP as your default OS.
After the installation, the system boots into windows XP by default, although not through grub.
For this, you need to start linux in rescue mode (use the same install DVD/CD and at linux prompt, type linux rescue)
mount the sysimage (chroot /mnt/sysimage)
use fdisk to change the default bootable flag (fdisk a [1-4]).
eg hda is your windows system partition; hdb is your linux partition
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda * 1 13054 104856223+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb xxx xxxx xxxxxx 83 Linux
Now reboot your system and you should have a dual boot XP/OEL.
hth,
userxxxx

I want to dual boot windows 7 and Arch with an HDD caddy.

I am thinking of two possiblities with this scenario. I want to first leave my windows 7 install on the hard drive that came with my laptop, and leave that HDD where it is, but in a few days, i'm getting a caddy so i can switch my optical drive for another HDD, which is going to be a 250gb. On the 250, i want to experiment with arch, and maybe other linux distros, so i can get a nice feel for linux once again, it's been about 2 years since I've played with it. What i am hoping to maybe do is switch those hard drives out, if I can get a linux install i feel 100% comfortable with, and running the windows HDD in the caddy, and the linux HDD installed in the motherboard.
I just have a few questions though. First, is it possible to boot Arch when it is an HDD caddy? and second, would windows possibly work if i moved that hard drive into the caddy later?

perpulstuph wrote:First, is it possible to boot Arch when it is an HDD caddy? and second, would windows possibly work if i moved that hard drive into the caddy later?
Yes, and yes. Both should be quite easy.
You should be able to set you BIOS to boot from one or the other - or alternately you can chainload windows from a linux boot loader quite easily (if/when linux is on the drive that the BIOS has selected to boot).

Installing Multiple Operating Systems with grub and Arch Linux

NOTE: Please keep in mind that there are many different ways to achieve this same result using various loop and ramdisk methods, read this with a separate window to jot down your comments and suggestions... this is ongoing for me so any help would be appreciated!
Read the full article at Install Multiple Os without cds
This is my first post and I plan on making this topic an official HOWTO with www.tldp.org.
I have been into the computer security scene since 1990, but I realized that I had very little experience with the various LInux, Unix, and alternative Operating systems out there.
I have a CD-RW drive but being a struggling computer security researcher I had no money for blank cd-recordables. What follows is how I managed to install various operating systems on my computer (1 hard drive) without having to burn to a CD the ISO and then boot from that.
I first partitioned my 120GB harddrive into 10 partitions, the 2nd partition is a small swap and the last partition is extra large because it holds all the ISO images..
I then wrote a small shell script to automatically download (I love wget!) the following.
OpenBSD
IpCOP
Libranet
Arch-Linux
Fire
Local Area Security
Packet Master
Devil-Linux
FreeBSD
Knoppix
Helix
Gentoo
Yoper-Linux
NetBSD
RedHat
Slackware
The script also downloaded Installation manuals and md5 checksums.. (let me know if I should post... its pretty unsophisticated
I installed Slackware (personal favorite) on hda1 using my last blank CD-R, note that I do not have a separate boot partitino. (Should I?). I also installed grub on the MBR. I love grub, if you read through the man pages and all info you can find about grub, you can learn a whole lot. Grub has much more features and capability than lilo, even though lilo comes installed by default with slack.
I organize my kernel situation as follows... In my /boot directory, I mkdir KERNEL, CONFIG, MAP, INITRD and that is a good way for me to keep my kernels and everything organized.. Another good way is a separate dir for each new kernel.
Since Arch-Linux is a solid distro, I'll use that as a first example.
Here is the Arch-Linux section of my shell script
goge Arch-Linux
$w http://puzzle.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/archlinux/arch-0.6.iso
$w http://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/archlinux/arch-0.6.md5sum
$w http://www.archlinux.org/docs/en/guide/install/arch-install-guide.html
md55
cat arch-0.6.md5sum
md5sum arch-0.6.iso
md55
The first thing to do is to mount the downloaded ISO image so we can use it as if it were an actual CD.
mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 cdimage /mnt/cdrom
Where cdimage= the ISO image. EX. /usr/local/src/ISO/Linux/Arch-Linux/arch-0.6.iso
This mounts the iso as /mnt/cdrom.
Next you need to copy /mnt/cdrom to a separate partition for the booting process. So mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda9. ( I prefer reiserfs or even XFS to ext but if you use something other than ext2 you could run into some problems because some of the installation kernels and initrds don't include support for reiserfs and so can't recognize the files. Although you could use mkinitrd to create a new initrd with reiserfs support, that might be pushin it IMO... I use the 9th partition consistently for this. I know there is a "right" way to copy the /mnt/cdrom files so everything stays the way it is supposed too, using tar or cpio, but I'm lazy so I just do cp -rp.
(What is the tar or cpio commands to copy with correct permissions etc??)
So you mount the 9th partition as whatever, say /mnt/hd and then copy the files. Now what?
Now edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to include the specific options to boot arch-linux installation.
A good idea is to find the isolinux.cfg file somewhere on the distro cd, this will tell you what to include in the menu.lst.
Here is the section in my menu.lst
title Arch Install
root (hd0,8)
kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 root=/dev/rd/0
initrd=/isolinux/initrd.img
This should be self-explanatory. The root (hd0,8) is pointing to partition 9. So the rest of the commands start from partition 9.
When you experience problems, remember you can always edit the grub boot options by typing 'e' and then edit the section. Also, a good idea is to include several variations in your menu.lst so you can easily try other ways to boot efficiently. And, remember to read up on all the installation guides that come with your distro, specifically, hard-disk installs.
There are special cases, Gentoo, has a semi-new compressed filesystem called squashfs. BTW, this is AWESOME, so check it out. It has to be compiled into the kernel, so some work is in order, but use this recompile to optimize your kernel. You can get the squashfs patch for almost any kernel. I use the latest stable 2.6 kernel. Squashfs is incredible and although I don't think you need it to install from ISO, you do need it to expand the livecd.squashfs filesystem that comes with the cd.
Heres a sample Gentoo section from my menu.lst
title Gentoo Install
root (hd0,8)
kernel /isolinux/gentoo root=/dev/ram0
initrd=/isolinux/gentoo.igz init=/linuxrc acpi=off looptype=squashfs loop=/livecd.squashfs cdroot vga=791 splash=silent
A nother' tip is the shell that is provided if you experience problems, typically busybox or ash. The key tools to get you going from here is mount and chroot. Sometimes you will need to manually create a simulated file system and then chroot into it. For instance, you might have to create boot, etc, bin, directories on the target partition.
I generally install each OS onto the next partition (careful of the logical partition) and add it to my menu.lst after install. A good idea is after installation, copy the kernel and initrd(if there is one) to the slackware(or whatever) boot partition on hda1. I copy kernels to /boot/KERNEL/ and initrd's to /boot/INITRD, then menu.lst is more organized...
You then need to add an updated section to your menu.lst (just comment out the install section for later)
Here is the finished arch-linux section from menu.lst
title Arch Linux 6
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 ro root=/dev/hdc3
This doesn't use my convenient boot/KERNEL/vmlinuz26 as you can tell by setting the root to partition 3.
***NOTE: Make a backup of MBR using dd and save to floppy, also backup the partition table to floppy, using cfdisk or parted. And boot disks (I use 1 with grub, and 1 with slack, and tomsbootdisk) will invariably come in handy. Tomsbootdisk is recommended, and make the grub boot disk when you install grub. install to floppy.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The final result after some fun experimenting, is when I boot, I have a cool grub boot screen come up with the option to boot into whatever OS I want, this is handy for multiple reasons. One good thing to do after this is to port scan and vuln scan each OS, after you update of course. Write this stuff down and you will know the weaknesses/strengths of the various OS's.
I can boot a custom Firewall, snort, or multiple honeypots using this procedure, as well as a graphical kde environment with a kernel optimized for graphics and my processor/architecture, or an environment devoted to forensics or even an environment suitable for programming.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
P.S. Some of the cooler alternative operating systems are BeOS 5, EOS, ER_OS, V2_OS, and my personal favorite Menuet. Menuet is 100% assembly graphical operating system that fits on a floppy. Its f'in money!
This should be a good enough example to get you started, this kind of thing should be learned and not just copied... Knowing how to do this stuff could prove to be exceptionally useful...

Start by reading all the articles built-in on your Mac - Help > Mac Help, search "printer sharing."
http://desk.stinkpot.org:8080/tricks/index.php/2008/04/how-to-print-to-a-cups-se rver-from-mac-os-x/
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080324224027152&query=share%2Bpri nter
http://members.cox.net/18james/osxprintersharing.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-56940.html

[SOLVED] Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux

I'm not sure at all where to post this, so I've decided to do it here since I have the problem on a laptop... Please move if it should be somewhere else.
I installed Arch Linux on my new laptop a month ago or so, and am very pleased to have found the very kind of distro I've been looking for. However, I'm having trouble with my graphics (either wine doesn't support it, or the drivers don't have 2D/3D acceleration), and now I want to install Windows XP next to Arch Linux.
Using a GParted LiveCD, I've repartitioned the harddrive as such: Unpartitioned Space (27GB), Linux (197GB), SWAP (5GB).
I've also removed the bootable flag from the Linux partition, just to be sure. However, when I try to install Windows XP, it gets stuck after unpacking a bunch of drivers, giving me a bluescreen that tells me to make sure the hardware isn't broken, check my harddrive with CHKDSK /F, or look for viruses. Ofcourse I know none of these are true, since I'm running Arch Linux just fine.
A friend suggested that maybe my hardware isn't supported by Windows XP, which sounds like the most reasonable explanation so far, but I can't find a list of supported hardware. The M$ homepage basicly says
"Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)"
for CPU, which doesn't help me at all.
My hardware is:
Processor: Intel Celeron 2.2 Ghz
Memory: 2GB DDR2
Graphics: Intel 4500MHD
And the laptop is called an "eMachines E525", though that doesn't say much since there are very, very many called this.
Can anyone give me any hints as to what I might be doing wrong?
Last edited by Noxic (2010-05-29 18:44:32)

Sounds like something I'll want to do. Where did you download the drivers? Do I have to follow some guide? Thanks for the tip
EDIT:
Indeed I will want to install AHCI drivers, otherwise Arch Linux fails to boot quite badly. There is also a problem preventing me from booting when I'm using AHCI though;
At boot, Arch Linux checks /dev/sda1 (NTFS) for errors, and expects to check an ext2 filesystem. Obviously, however, /dev/sda1 is an NTFS filesystem.
Since it tries to read the NTFS partition as an ext2 filesystem, it panics. Arch Linux then prompts me for the root password (or Ctrl+D to reboot), but I've disabled root login and can therefore do nothing at this point.
I have a GParted livecd and the Arch Linux livecd, so editing files on any of the filesystem isn't a problem at all, but I don't know what to do at this point. Help?
Last edited by Noxic (2010-05-29 12:40:33)

Windows 7 and Arch (GRUB problem)

Hello I'm a new user in Arch and almost new in linux (well i need to work at university with linux so i'm not such a newb). I was using Windows 7 for a while and i installed Arch linux for programming. Everything installed very well and i really like Arch linux. But there is one problem, when GRUB boots i can choose between Arch and Windows and while i boot Arch everything is Ok, but the problem is when i boot Windows and it disables my GRUB (GRUB is installed in boot partition 200mb) well not disables, but just takes of Boot option (flag?) from boot partition and GRUB doesn't loads. so all the time after Windows usage i must run cfdisk and make boot partition bootable and remove root from windows.
Maybe anyone knos how to solve this problem or they have encountered such problem and fixed it.
If u need any code from GRUB say i will post it later, now i need to finish program in Windows.
P.S. i have surfed/serached forum for few days about such problem and found nothing... (maybe i'm blind?)

Firstly, normal people (atleast those i have communicated) don't critisize for grammar mistakes because everyone makes such mistakes. Second i prefer my mother langue more than other and i don't even bothered to learn english like i learned lithuanian langue.
Secondly, yeah if you would read news about computing and etc. you should know that there isn't full windows 7 there is windows 7 BETA, well i personally just forgot that work(mistake maybe? or i prefer not to say beta words with programm because i work mostly with beta programms).
And yeah Windows 7 was first installed (doh, if you would think more that fact would be clear because i wrote "I WAS using Windos 7 for a while..."

Installing Windows XP after Arch Linux already been installed [SOLVED]

Here is my dilema:
I have a Fujitsu Lifebook T4010 Laptop with a Wacom Tablet built into the screen. About a month ago I installed Arch Linux on it. It took me a while to get everything working (tablet screen/function buttons/on rotate flip reso) but eventually I got it all working.
The thing is I feel like I'm not fully taking advantage of its tablet abilities. I want to be able to use it with Photoshop and Flash. I decided I should dual boot it with Windows XP / Arch.
So I cut down on my /home partition and freed up ~25 gigs of the total 80 gigs for Windows. When I went to install it told me the maximum number of partitions had been met. I looked it up online and apparently you can only have 4 primary partitions and with the 4 that Arch currently occupies (boot/swap/root/home) it looks like I'm out of luck.
I'm thinking my only option is to combine my home partition with my root partition to free up a primary partition. People tell me it's easier when you have Windows installed first but to be honest it took me quite some time to get this laptop/tablet up and running and all of it's features working for me how I wanted and I don't want to have to go through it again.
If anyone has any advice, work arounds, or could tell me how I would go about safely combining my home and root partition it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks a ton,
Last edited by bladdo (2009-06-13 17:12:09)

lzs wrote:
After a second thought, you'd have to move the home partition as well, as the extended partition counts too. I'd start with an arch live cd, cfdisk, delete swap, make extended, 2 logical drives, format the partition, backup, move home's content. then delete home, create new primary, install windows, write grub again, put the new partitions into fstab and tell grub where to find windows.
EDIT: After a third thought, combining home and root might be easier: Just copy home's content to your root partition (if ther is enough room ...), unmount home, copy the stuff to /home and delete the home partition from fstab. Then delete the old home partition.
Copying the home's contents to the root partition was what I had in mind. I'm trying to figure out how I would go about doing that though. If I copy the /home to the root partition from the old home partition - will it automatically pick it up if I delete the fstab entry. Also will it be possible to expand my /root partition after that to take up the space the home partion use to own?

Windows XP and Arch Linux

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