Michael's ArchLinux Installation

[Gregory Nowak]

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On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 02:41:55PM -0600, Tyler Littlefield wrote:
> I know a friend had linux booting with the windows boot loader to grub, and he edited boot.ini, but that was a messy hack to say the least.

If you read the windows nt boot loader howto (I forget the exact
title), then it's actually pretty straight forward, at least I thought
so. Here's what my boot.ini looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=c:\bootsect.lnx
[operating systems]
c:\bootsect.lnx="Debian GNU/Linux"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

In my case, the first os to boot is gnu/linux, the boot sector of
which can be found in c:\bootsect.lnx, though the file name is up to
you. I generate that file by installing lilo into the gnu/linux
partition, and then using dd to copy the first 512 bytes of the
partition into bootsect.lnx (I.E. dd if=/dev/hda3
of=/windows/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1"). If you wanted windows to be
the default, then I think the line would be like:

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

but don't quote me on that, find and read the howto I mentioned, or
see a tip below.

In the operating systems section, for gnu/linux, you have
file_name="description", where description is what will appear on the
boot screen for that entry. As far as I can recall, the rest of it
will already be in the boot.ini file, but again, don't quote me on
that, go read up on it.

Tip: if you've got the boot.ini file edited to your liking, then you
can change the time out, and the boot order through the windows
gui. It should be in the advanced tab of control panel, system. Note
also that I didn't just go opening boot.ini in notepad, I used the
edit button, which will be in the same place where you can change time
out, and boot order, like I just mentioned. You probably can just edit
boot.ini with notepad, but I chose to do it the official way, since I
didn't want to risk being left with an unbootable system. Hth
somewhat.

Greg


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