Installing Solaris Express - multiboot with WinXP and Linux

Robert Glueck · *nix forums beginner Joined: 23 Apr 2005 Posts: 41

I'm thinking of installing Solaris Express for x86 on a Dell
Dimension 2300 (Celeron 1.7 GHz, 512 MB RAM).

I have two HDD's:

1. hda (30 GB): Windows XP, 2 partitions, a small FAT and
the rest NTFS
2. hdb (80 GB): Linux, 10 partitions (ext3 and reiserfs3)
plus a 0.5 GB Linux swap partition; this drive presently
holds 8 different Linux distros.

All the booting is done via LILO which I installed from my
main Linux distro in the MBR of hda. The boot loaders of
all the other Linux distros (GRUB or LILO) I've always
installed in the /boot sector of their respective
partitions, or in one or two cases where this didn't work
I've written the boot loader to floppy.

For Solaris Express I can free up a 20 GB primary partition
on hdb which is presently occupied by Linux. I can also
free up another smaller partition (2 GB) to be used by
Solaris as swap; this would have to be a logical partition
on an extended primary partition. If this doesn't work for
swap and it's absolutely necessary that the Solaris swap
partition also be a primary partition, I could possibly
free up a small primary partition for that.

I would very much prefer to continue using my familiar LILO
for booting all these OS's including Solaris, rather than
replacing LILO with the Solaris GRUB in the MBR of hda.
The reason being that I'm just a little worried that I
might lose some of these OS's were I to do that.

Can this be done as outlined? If it's not possible to boot
Solaris via LILO, can I write the Solaris GRUB to floppy
and boot Solaris from the floppy?

What other special points would I need to consider?

Many thanks for your help.

Robert

Google