[sf-lug] Multiboot

[aaronco36]

Quoting Akkana Peck <akkana at shallowsky.com> from [01]:
> It's sad. It was so easy in the grub 1 days; if you made a
> separate /boot partition, all the info on distros lived there,
> and multiple distros all shared it happily because the syntax
> didn't change.

IIRC before GRUB 1.x, the LInux LOader LILO was perhaps _the foremost_ 
boot manager to natively handle both Linux versions as well as concurrent 
versions of Windows, in multiboot setups.

In the latter part of the 1990's, there was also an excellent 
commercially-sold boot manager that came on a 3.5" floppy disk for MS 
Windows 9x called System Commander[02].
System Commander was successfully able to not only multiboot all versions 
of MS-Windows 9x[03]-[06], but also 1) the older 16bit MS-DOS 6.22[07] 
with the "original" MS-Windows 3.1x GUI, 2) the 32bit MS-Windows NT 
4.0[08], 3) IBM's 32bit OS/2-Warp 4.0[09] of pre-Millenial fame, and 4) 
earlier 32bit Linux distros such as Red Hat Linux 5.x[10].
In the early Aughts (~2001-2003), was eventually able to also successfully 
multiboot Red Hat Linux version 6.2 and higher plus one or two other 
contemporary distros having the linux 2.2.x and/or 2.4.x kernels, Windows 
ME, and Windows 2000; all by using System Commander (as well as by using 
another relatively obscure boot manager called GAG[11].)


> I always have multiple boot partitions on my machines, not for
> frequent distro-hopping nor for other OSes like Windows, but for
> upgrades.

ISTR being able to successfully install and multiboot a maximum of _four_ 
of the above-listed OS's fairly easily by using System Commander around 
the time of the Millenium and early Aughts -- similarly using multiple 
boot partitions on my machines -- with the remaining 16bit/32bit non-NTFS 
MS OS's booted from Windows NT's/2K's NTLDR using instructions essentially 
identical to that of [12].


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REFERENCES
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[01]http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2020q1/014548.html
[02]https://winworldpc.com/product/system-commander/deluxe-400
[03]https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-95/osr-1
[04]https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-95/osr-2
[05]https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-98/windows-98
[06]https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-98/98-second-edition
[07]https://winworldpc.com/product/ms-dos/622
[08]https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-nt-40/40
[09]https://winworldpc.com/product/os-2-warp-4/os-2-warp-40
[10]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Linux#Version_history
[11]http://gag.sourceforge.net/
[12]http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/multiboot/mboot_nt_2k_lin.htm
====================================


aaronco36 at sdf.org