Win XP/Linux dual boot -which boot loader to use?

I've been preparing to install Fedora Linux on my computer; my current OS is Win XP Pro.

To prepare a partition on one of my two HDs for Linux to reside I used Partition Magic 8.0

I'm wondering if anybody has any advice or opinions on which dual boot commander to use, Bootmagic that comes with Partition Magic or GRUB that is packaged with Fedora Linux? From what I've read so far I haven't seen anything that will help me decide. Does anybody have experiences with Win XP/Linux dual boot systems that can help me decide whether Bootmagic or GRUB is the better choice?

 

Haven't yet ventured into Linux territory myself but quite a few folks here have. Suggest you use the search feature here and search this site using "dual boot linux" (without the quotes). You may have to wade through some irrelevant threads but just looking at the subject headers from my own search just now on "dual boot linux" I found several threads that discuss your question.

Good luck!

 

Hello, Meanfire.
In my experience, any modern day Linux distro will handle the install of Grub (or LILO, as the case may be) to the mbr quite nicely.

That is, if you already have XP installed, and then you install Fedora to the, say, second primary partition, you will find the option to have Grub installed
to the mbr during the installation routine. This is perhaps the easiest way to get it done, as it is essentially all done for you.

If you want to plan on maybe changing things in the future, I would suggest that you consider the freely available boot loader GAG:

here, here is a link to download it, if you choose:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2588

I go with this premium bootloader on any machine that I happen to know that I will be messing around experimenting with several installs on.

Otherwise, I tend to just let Grub do it.
Be mindful that reconfiguring Grub can be a bit more troublesome than reconfiguring GAG. GAG is very easy to work with and modify, a no-brainer.

Also, when you used the PartitionMagic, did you have it also make a swap partition for the Fedora to use?

If not, do you have enough RAM (at least 1 Gig) to do without a swap partition?


Best of luck to you in your adventures with Fedora.

 

Already tried that - null result.

 

Thanks for the word on GAG. I was warned not to use LILO because it may screw up my MBR so Win becomes unbootable.

I've set up enough room (8 GB) for 100 MB boot file partition, ~1.5 GB swap file partition, and remaining ~6.4 GB for Linux OS and some extra space to manuever. I've yet to install Linux obviously. And I will be creating a "buffer" partition where I can d/l files with Linux, and then later use them with Win apps once I'm sure they're safe. I refuse to believe Microsoft engineers who are quoted as saying that Windows is more secure than Linux. There are 99 black-hats writing malware for Windows compared with 1 screwing with Linux code (IMHO).

 

I don't know if Fedora can do it (I've yet to get Red Hat to install successfully) But with SuSe and Mandrake, I've installed Grub and/or LILO to a floppy, that way it boots to windows normally if I don't have the floppy in, if I do have the floppy in I get a nice selection menu in case I did want to boot to windows and forgot to eject the disk. Also, GRUB and LILO both can screw up your MBR, the practical difference between grub and lilo is basically nothing, but the tweaking differences are what set them apart.

 

this "buffer" partition, then...
it will be a FAT32 partition?
and then you can copy the files onto the NTFS partition if you want?

Remember:
If you choose to use GAG, (say if you plan to install knoppix in the future, replacing Fedora, or whatever), then have the Fedora installation install
GRUB into the root partition of Fedora, not into the mbr.

GAG can then boot, and hand off control to GRUB.

It should go without incident.

If you are still yet to format the "buffer" partition, in FAT32, let Windows or PartitionMagic format it, not Fedora.

 

The buffer partiton has to be FAT - Linux can't read from NTFS. Sometimes the Linux literature refers to the formatting as VFAT (Virtual FAT).

And there is another service that can be run under Linux called WINE (see http://www.winehq.com/ ) that permits some Windows apps to run while you are booted into Linux. Of course they can't be on the primary partition that includes your Windows OS since that partition is inaccessible to Linux. Linux has enough robust tools for the most part, but I will probably want to be able to run Macromedia Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop without having to reboot whenever I have image editing tasks and will be uploading the final results with Linux when I'm done.

 

Linux can read from NTFS, just fine and it can write to NTFS...just not safely. I haven't had the urge to restore my system so I haven't really messed with mounting an NTFS volume with read/write permissions.