(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

hi guys.. i have another newby question.
i have a dual boot set up with pclinux os & xp using lilo. its working good.

in another available empty ext3 partition on the same hd i want to do a normal puppy install. puppy's installer has no option to use an existing lilo, only to install grub.
i'm afraid to use the install grub option in case something goes wrong making my existing setup unbootable.

how do i install puppy & add it to lilo?

thanks for any help.

joesavana

i think the best way to install a Linux distro to a partition, when you have a boot loader like Lilo or /grub already installed on the mbr, is to let the installer install it's boot loader on the boot sector or the partitionthe you are installing on ... then you can configure your boot loader on the mbr to chain to the boot loader on the boot sector of the partition

for example, you might have PClinuxOS and XP installed, and Lilo installed on the mbr, so you can select which OS to boot ... you could install Puppy on hda5, for example, and install Grub on the boot sector of hda5, then add a section to your lilo.conf to chain to hda5 ... if you had Grub installed on the mbr, the chain to Puppy section would look something like this:

title = Puppy
rootnoverify (hd0,4)
chainloader +1

if you wanted to reconfigure your boot loader on the mbr later, to boot Puppy directly, bypassing the boot loader on the boot sector of the Puppy partiiton instead of chaining to it, you could easily do that any time later

basically, when a distro installs to one of my partitions, i want it to leave my mbr alone ... if it wants to install a boot loader, it can install to the boot sector of the partition ... some distros seem to insist on messing with my mbr, though ... it's a good idea to backup the mbr before installing a distro

by the way, personally i would probably prefer to install Puppy as a frugal install ... just copy 3 or 4 files to the hard drive, add a few lines to the boot loader configuration file, and Puppy is installed ... easier to install, and easier to upgrade to the latest version ... to each his own preferences