[Back to contents] [Motivation] [Libretto 110CT] [Windows 95] [OS/2 Warp 3.0] [Linux: RedHat 5.2 & Mandrake 6.0] [Epilogue]
Last update 13 June 2001
Having purchased the Libretto, I wanted to end up with the following:
It was highly desirable that the various operating systems should not be able to "see" each other while booting. For Linux this is no problem. Windows cannot see HPFS. OS/2 Warp cannot see FAT32. There are boot managers around which can shield primary partitions from each other.
All in all, the common FAT16 data partition should be in an extended partition; OS/2 and Linux could also be accomodated in an extended partition; both Windows versions had best be installed completely in their own primary partitions (but should each at least boot from them).
[My wishes in technical detail] My disk partitioning scheme [How to boot it all] [Installation order] [Top of page]
Installation of the various operating systems on the Libretto harddisk is not without problems:
Table 1: Report by OS/2 Warp 3 IBMS506 IDE device driver
IBM Corp. Bus Master IDE Driver for OS/2 version 4.20 |
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Contr.:0 Port: 01F0 IRQ:000E Status:OK |
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Unit:0 Status:OK PIO4 BPB |
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Model:TOSHIBA MK4310MAT G2.02 B |
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Drive has valid BIOS extensions version 3.3 |
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|
log |
phys |
BIOS:log |
BPB:log |
IDE:log |
phys |
Total sectors |
|
C |
526 |
8944 |
516 |
|
526 |
8944 |
avail |
8452080 |
H |
255 |
15 |
255 |
255 |
255 |
15 |
OS2 |
8450190 |
S |
63 |
63 |
63 |
63 |
63 |
63 |
% used |
99.98 |
[My wishes in technical detail] [General considerations] [How to boot it all] [Installation order] [Top of page]
MY DISK PARTITIONING SCHEME
I devised a disk partitioning scheme as follows (cylinder nos. by Linux FDISK):
Partition no. |
Linux (/dev/....) |
First cylinder |
Last cylinder |
Size (Mb) (cf. OS/2) |
Type (hex) |
Type |
Contents |
1 p |
hda2 |
1 |
1 |
7 |
a |
OS/2 boot manager |
|
2 p |
hda1 |
2 |
259 |
(2022) |
5 |
Extended |
|
3 p |
hda3 |
260 |
317 |
455 |
6 |
FAT16 |
Windows 95 #1 ( employer) (C: ) |
4 p |
hda4 |
318 |
517 |
1568 |
c |
FAT32 |
Windows 95 #2 (personal) (C:) |
Extended partition: |
|||||||
5 L |
hda5 |
2 |
84 |
651 |
6 |
FAT16 |
common data (D:) |
6 L |
hda6 |
85 |
85 |
7 |
83 |
EXT2 |
Linux boot |
7 L |
hda7 |
86 |
117 |
251 |
7 |
HPFS |
OS/2 Warp (E:) |
8 L |
hda8 |
118 |
127 |
78 |
82 |
Linux swap |
|
9 L |
hda9 |
128 |
259 |
1035 |
83 |
EXT2 |
Linux 5.2 |
- |
- |
518 |
526 |
70 |
- |
Hibernation space |
where "p" indicates a primary partition and "L" a logical one, and 1 Linux block equals about 7.8 Mb.
An important issue is that the last 70 Mb of the harddisk should be kept free as this is the place where the Toshiba dumps its memory (including video memory + ?BIOS?) during hibernation.
Being warned for OS/2 FDISK's hypersensitivity by Mike Harlan in his
Linux+Windows95+DOS+OS/2 mini-HOWTO, I implemented this partitioning lay-out initially with OS/2's FDISK. Later I found that Linux FDISK does the job just as well.
[My wishes in technical detail] [General considerations] [My disk partitioning scheme] [Installation order] [Top of page]
OS/2's boot manager is an obvious candidate. However, it cannot shield (errr...does not shield) primary FAT32 partitions. Booting Windows # 1, which cannot see FAT32, does not pose any problems. Booting Windows # 2 (an OSR-2 which DOES use FAT32) does: first a message about "a compression driver not set up correctly" flashes. After some more complaints, Windows (or actually, still DOS) simply dies; the last sigh before the end is that it can't find COMMAND.COM. The cause turned out to be that OS/2 sets all partition flags in the extended partition to "active". Using Linux FDISK these flags can be toggled, and when partition # 4 is also set as active partition (thus bypassing OS?2's boot manager) Windows # 2 does boot flawlessly (it properly recognizes the other primary FAT partition (Windows # 1) and assigns it drive letter E:).
Linux's LILO is the next obvious candidate. However, it requires one to type the name of the operating system. Ofcourse you can code them at your discretion (e.g., "1", "2", ..) but it is better to give them a mnemonic name (one which helps you recall what it is, like W95).
Another issue is that Mandrake Linux 6.0 seems to have a flaw: there are several reports that installing LILO in the MBR screws up the MBR.
I found a solution in Gertjan Klein's freeware
Boot Control program. It can only be used to boot from primary partitions, but as OS/2's boot manager lives in a primary partition, one might "boot" the OS/2 boot manager and then use this to boot anything in extended (or for that matter, also primary) partitons. Another candidate, not tried out by me, might be MasterBooter or Boot It.Installation details can be found in the Boot Control distribution. I installed MBR type 5, and designated partition # 4 (my FAT32 Windows #2 partition) as OS/2 partition (yep! read BC.txt or BC.htm and you know why....) I removed partition # 1 from the BC's boot menu, as this is the extended partition. So I now can boot partitions 2-4 (OS/2 boot manager, Windows # 1 and Windows # 2, respectively).
[My wishes in technical detail] [General considerations] [My disk partitioning scheme] [How to boot it all] [Top of page]
INSTALLATION ORDER
I first implemented the partitioning scheme during the first attempts to install OS/2. Next I added Windows # 1, then OS/2 for the first times and finally Windows # 2. Somewhere in between I installed Linux for the first times.
I think that altogether I've installed Linux five times, OS/2 three times and Windows #1 and #2 each twice - clearly a number of iterations were needed to get me satisfied with the results. Regarding Linux installation, other people report more or less the same number of tries!
Morale: don't be afraid or ashamed of making mistakes. Experimentation is obviously needed. It's just a computer, so mistakes only cost time. (Sometimes very much time. My girlfriend often groaned during late evenings and during weekends when the sun was shining outside, and admittedly with good reason.)
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