Support #500
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Creating a Dual-Boot DouDouLinux / Windows XP Laptop
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Description
Hello -
I am new to DoudouLinux and somewhat to Linux in general. I have an old HP laptop that I'm going to give as a gift to a child. I have successfully created separate hard drives for both WinXP and DouDouLinux (I have performed the 'definitive' installation). These both work fine, but the laptop only has one IDE port, making changing OS's very difficult (remove one drive, install the other).
What I'm trying to do is combine the two onto a single disk, and then use GRUB (or some other boot loaded) to let the user select 'Doudou Linux' or 'Windows' when the laptop is powered on. I have the tools and skills to resize and move the partitions (GPart, etc), however I'm having trouble understanding / modifying the DoudouLinux GRUB installation.
I now have a hard-disk with 4 partitions - dev/hda1,dev/hda2,dev/hda3 are 'normal' Doudoulinux (Linux, Linux swap, Linux data). I resized the Linux data (hda3) from 50GB to 3GB, and then moved my 40GB Windows XP partition to the same disk as dev/hda4. The laptop still boots DoudouLinux just fine after the resize and adding the new partition.
What I'm trying to do is modify the GRUB configuration to include an option to select the OS, but I'm having no success. Is this type of a configuration possible, and if so, can you please provide some information about how I can modify the GRUB (or other boot loader)?
I'm very impressed with what I've seen if DoudouLinux so far; I'm hoping it is possible to make this work as described above for my 9 y.o niece.
Merci beacoup!
Jan
Updated by Jean-Michel Philippe over 12 years ago
Hello Jan,
Thank you for your interest in our project :). I think the main problem you have is that a LiveCD is not using Grub but Syslinux. When you perform an installation of DoudouLinux with the tool we're providing, it is not a real Linux install but a LiveUSB-like indeed. On your first partition you'll find a directory syslinux/ in which the file live.cfg contains information about boot entries. I've never tried to make it boot Windows (I even haven't such program at home ;) ) so I can't tell you what to write. Most probably the Syslinux website will tell you everything you need.
If you manage to get it work, I'd be highly interested in posting an entry in our dev's blog with your recipe. Of course I'll mention you as author of the great work :).