Dual booting limpus AAO?

Hey there all,
I'm pretty new to linux and such but am keen to get into it :)
I picked up an AAO 150 today and want to throw XP on there for university reasons, but dont want to kill off the limpus OS on there already.
So from the days when I played with dual booting I found XP was never something to install as a secondary OS but I have heard this issue may have been addressed.

Through mucho's googleage I read that limpus doesnt recognise linux grub which is a little dis-heartening because if i remember correctly then this means theres very little chance of dual booting whilst keeping the limpus OS on there
BUT
Tabbing on boot does bring up a Grub menu so I'm not sure what thats about.

I know this is a little specilised but it would be great just to hear some points of view on the situation. I think I'm going to sort Knoppix on USB for now to get by until I can get XP or until I abandon the idea all together and lose the linpus...

Any thoughts would be much appreciated :)

Best regards

-Chris Jvr

Hi and Welcome !

Linpus uses GRUB Boot loader only but its hidden by default and thats not a problem. As you know already, Windows OS doesn't work fine if you install it after Linux.
Is it possible for you to re-install Linpus. I mean, wipe harddisk ( or create a separate partition and dump data there ), install Windows OS first and then Linpus.
Linpus installer will detect Windows OS and setup dual boot itself.
I would suggest you try installing Windows OS now. Nothing will go wrong if you take care of partitioning. Create separate partition for it before starting installation. We will try to setup dual boot in current setup. It worked in a few machines and you might be lucky.

To show my absolout noobity with limpux i'm going to have to admit that after muchos googlagle i cant figure out how to partition the hard drive on this AAO.
After finding Gparted I'v had less than no joy getting it to run...
I'm starting to wonder weather this is just inexplicably difficult or i'v missed something so basic no one has mentioned it :|

I dont know where I would find linpus to re-install after putting XP on there using the recovery supplied will wipe anything else on there restoring factory default...

I'm also curious to know if installing XP will hinder the recovery process leaving the machine un-restorable to its origional state...

Any thoughts on partitioning the AAO in linpus would be great and any leads on lightening windows would be good to :)

Trust me to pick up something like this and get so involved with 3 assignments in for the end of the week (somehow its taken presidence over uni *sighs*).

Fun fun's none the less :)

Best regards

-Chris Jvr

Lets check partition structure of your disk first.
Execute this

Code:

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su -
fdisk -l

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Post output here.
* Its small L in fdisk -l.
In case su - doesn't give you root privileges, execute this

Code:

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sudo fdisk -l

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As i'm back on the desktop i'll type out the result there, lucky I'm pulling a networking all nighter :)

Disk /dev/dsa: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = sylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5fa38a47

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 14462 116165983+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14463 14593 1052257+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
[root@localhost~]#

I have to say I wish I had the time to really get stuck into all this, infact I'm pulling this alll nighter to try get my uni work out the way so I can play around with this a little more...
Is that a bad thing, I really want to get my java enviroment on here so I can play with that more to :)

To me it looks essentially like a single partition (OS wise at least).

Any thoughts here?
I still have no idea how to initalise programs withing linpus :|

Best regards

-Jvr

You have two partitions only. One is / (root) and other is SWAP.
Download PartedMagic LiveCD .iso image, burn it to CD and boot from it. Resize existing partitions and create new partition for Windows OS. Format new partition in NTFS.
PartedMagic is one of the Partition Manager.
Nothing will go wrong with your Linpus installation. Just resize partitions and install Windows XP in new partition.

Ahhh, superb.
Sounds almost to good to be true!
One problem is the lack of an external (or internal for that matter) ODD.
I will have to download that in the morning when I go to uni (opens 2-3 hours from now). I will get onto how to throw that onto USB and give it a shot when i get there!

-jvr

Not knowing how to put parted magic onto my USB (appologies again, google didnt reveal much) i decided to try falling back on knoppix, not something i'm entirly familiar with with but can get it on a USB and get it running (it actually boots rather fast and is pretty snappy on the AAO!!).

But yes, within knoppix using qtparted i can only see the USB drive and cant seem to mount the HDD (sda1)...

Am working on it with google though.

Will keep you updated :)

-Jvr

Quote:

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But yes, within knoppix using qtparted i can only see the USB drive and cant seem to mount the HDD (sda1)...

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Dose output of fdisk -l command list partitions of all plugged in disks?

Yep,
Same as before I think (will re-check when I get back).
I found that if I "open" the HDD with qtparted via right click it shows the partition... kind of.
I can see a 4gb partition and a 107gb partition and a bunch of other "/dev/cloop0" through to "dev/cloop6"although I cant re-size them (i read this may be because they are h##3 format?!).

I'm going to give pmagic another shot if i can find out how to USB it, if not, back to the knoppix.

Any thoughts? :)

I just want to thank you so far, this is proving "tricky" as far as i can see but I'm learning a little here and there and rather enjoying the grind :)

-Jvr