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How to create dual-boot with R6 & XP?
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Author:  marc.aronson [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 12:26 am ]
Post subject:  How to create dual-boot with R6 & XP?

Hi, I have a system with Windows XP already installed. I want the system to be a dual-boot system where I can choose between XP and LINHES R6. Any advise would be appreciated, thanks.

Author:  graysky [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 4:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How to create dual-boot with R6 & XP?

marc.aronson wrote:
Hi, I have a system with Windows XP already installed. I want the system to be a dual-boot system where I can choose between XP and LINHES R6. Any advise would be appreciated, thanks.


Easy to do. Currently, you can't run the R6 installer on that same HDD, but you can install R6 to another HDD, then manually partition your target PC's drive for R6 and manually copy R6 over, then install grub and setup the menu.lst.

Option 1: XP + R6 on same HDD
Option 2: XP on HDD #1 and R6 on HDD #2

Which one do you want?

Author:  marc.aronson [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:45 am ]
Post subject: 

Graysky,

Thanks for replying and your help! My preference is option#1 -- both systems on a single hard drive. My machine (Acer R1600) only has space for 1 internal drive.

I would also be interested in installing R6 onto an external USB drive. This machine will be a front-end only system. I've tried doing this but the boot always fails.

Author:  graysky [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 9:20 am ]
Post subject: 

Garysky? Dunno about an external hdd with R6. Sounds like the usb hook isn't in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf but I dunno for sure. The single drive option: you'll need a 2nd hdd just for scrap. Unplug the main drive and plug in the scrap drive. Install R6 to the scrap drive. Now temporarily plug in both drives with the main drive as SATA0 or HDD0 (IDE).

Use a gparted-live cd do several things. I'm assuming that your windows system occupies the first and optionally 2nd partitions.

1) Resize your windows partition on the main drive to allow for enough space for LinHES to function. Suggested partition sizes:

LinHES Root = / = 6 G
Swap = swap = none to 1x your RAM if you have say 2 G of RAM. Make it 1-2 G if you have 512 M of RAM.
Myth = /myth = Size can be >50 G depending on the temp space you want for your recordings. >500 G if doing HD recordings. You can use a dedicated NTFS partition (i.e. not your windows system partition) if you want, you'll need to install then ntfs-3g package in LinHES though.

2) Create the appropriately sized partitions for LinHES from within the gparted live environment. Note that you can only have 4 primary partitions on any one HDD, so if you want >four partitions make the first three primary and the rest of the space extended, then add as many logical ones to the extended one.

3) Manually mount the scrap drive's root partition and copy it over to the mounted main drive's corresponding partition. See this rsync thread. If gparted live doesn't include rsync (and it may not) boot with a live Ubuntu CD which has a nice GUI for doing this and rsync the files. Alternatively you can just use cp -av to do it.

4) Manually mount the scrap drive's /myth partition and copy it over to the mounted main drive's corresponding partition.

5) Install grub on your mbr. I would use the version of grub contained in the Arch Linux i686 Core CD.

Code:
# grub
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit


That will install grub to the MBR of your first HDD. Now just edit the menu.lst like this:

6) Edit /maindrives_root/boot/grub/menu.lst

Code:
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title      LinHES
root      (hd0,1)
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz26    root=/dev/sda2   ro    init=/sbin/runit    console=tty1   
initrd      /boot/kernel26.img


Read the Grub wiki page for more on grub. The example above assumes that your windows partition is the first one, and that your LinHES root partition is the 2nd one.

7) Edit your LinHES fstab adjusting it for the new place on the HDD.

The one in this example makes the same assumptions as above:

Code:
none                   /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0
none                   /dev/shm      tmpfs     defaults            0      0
/dev/sr0 /media/cdrom   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0

/dev/sda2   /   ext4   defaults,noatime,nodelalloc   0   1
/dev/sda3   swap   swap   defaults   0   0   
/dev/sda4   /myth   ext4   defaults,noatime,nodelalloc   0   0


8) Regen your kernel images. First chroot into your linhes root (let's call it /linhes). Then regen the images:

Code:
# chroot /linhes /bin/bash
# mkinitcpio -p kernel26

Any questions?

Author:  marc.aronson [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 9:51 am ]
Post subject: 

Graysky,

Thanks for the quick reply and the fantastic instructions -- this all makes sense. I am going to give this a shot. 1 quick question: Is there any reason I shouldn't use the version of grub on the LINHES live CD to install grub on the MBR?

Author:  graysky [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 10:32 am ]
Post subject: 

You can but I don't know how or if the LinHES R6 disc has a non-graphical option with root user enabled. I know as fact that the Arch CD does and also, the Arch CD's version of grub will work with ext4 partitions (as will the LinHES version).

Author:  mythedoff [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 12:40 pm ]
Post subject: 

Since your only installing to use as a frontend, an alternative might be installing virtualbox in xp then linhes as a client. Then you can be running xp and linhes at the same time.

Author:  graysky [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 12:43 pm ]
Post subject: 

Edited my post with step 8.

Author:  marc.aronson [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 2:05 pm ]
Post subject: 

Graysky, it all worked -- thank you! One problem I did run into is that step 5 would not work -- I don't recall the exact message but I got some sort of an error message when I tried to execute "setup (hd0)" from grub. I was using the Linhes boot image. I worked around this by using the following sequence instead:

Code:
   mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3
   cd /mnt/sda3
   grub-install  --no-floppy  --root-directory=.   /dev/sda
   


mythedoff, that's an interesting idea. Will a front-end work well running inside a virtual machine? ie, No video tearing, etc.

Author:  marc.aronson [ Sun Jan 31, 2010 2:36 pm ]
Post subject: 

The dual booting is working -- the problem I am facing now is that I don't seem to be getting any real video acceleration from the ION chip set. The playback has occasional pauses and top is close to maxing out. I've configured to use XVMC -- is there something else I need to do to get smooth hidef playback on a single-atom processor with ION chipset?

Author:  tscholl [ Mon Feb 01, 2010 8:14 pm ]
Post subject: 

Graysky, what would be the procedure for Option 2?

Quote:
Option 2: XP on HDD #1 and R6 on HDD #2

Author:  ceenvee703 [ Mon Feb 01, 2010 8:45 pm ]
Post subject: 

marc.aronson wrote:
...is there something else I need to do to get smooth hidef playback on a single-atom processor with ION chipset?


Shouldn't you be using vdpau for that chipset? Check your settings; if vdpau isn't an option you may have to install the testing versions of mythtv, etc.

Author:  marc.aronson [ Mon Feb 01, 2010 8:59 pm ]
Post subject: 

tscholl, you can simply install LINHES to a different drive and it should work as long as the other drive isn't USB connected. When the LINHES media boots it will ask you wish drive to install to. When booting after the install hit "F12" and you will be asked which device you want to boot from.

ceenvee703, on another thread I have been told that vdpau support is only available via mythtv 0.22. My backend is r5.5 => mythtv 0.21. My understanding is that these two versions don't inter-operate. It may be that XVMC simply isn't an option and that I will need to wait until I am ready to upgrade my backend before I can take full advantage of this platform.

Author:  marc.aronson [ Sun Jan 08, 2012 12:22 am ]
Post subject: 

It's time to upgrade the dual-boot system from 6.04 to 7.1. It's currently a windows 7 + LINHES 6.04 dual boot system. If I use the upgrade command in LINHES 6.04, will it know enough to preserve my partition structure and not wipe-out my Windows 7 install?

I'm using GRUB; windows 7 is the first partition; LINHES 7.1 is the third partition...

Marc

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