[vox-tech] Problems with dual boot system (Win 98/RH 7.2)

[Rod Roark]

Sounds like you need to clear your master boot record (MBR), which is the 
first sector on the hard drive.

>From DOS this is done with "fdisk /mbr".  From a Linux rescue disk, you 
can do something like "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1".  
Either of these will destroy any partitioning information on the drive.

> ...
> What is kernel panic? I heard it mentioned on the list recently...

It means the kernel was unable to continue.  The particular reason should 
be in an error message.  It's almost always caused by some kind of 
misconfiguration or damage to the configuration.

> How can I load Linux so that it runs completely separate from Windows,
> (ie. no bootloader, stability of one doesn't affect the other, etc.)?

You can get the most separation in a dual-boot setup by booting Linux only 
from diskette.  Otherwise one OS is going to have to be in charge of 
booting the other.

With computers so cheap now, another thing to consider is having a 
separate Linux box networked to your Windows machine.  With VNC you can 
even stick it away in a closet and access everything from one machine.  
This makes a lot of sense if you also have a reason to run your own web, 
mail, file or print server, or internet gateway, or any combination of 
these.

-- Rod
   http://www.sunsetsystems.com/