Serious reservations about FC2 release on 5/18

James W. Bennett silverhead at comcast.net
Mon May 17 00:22:00 UTC 2004


On Sun, 2004-05-16 at 17:17, Confushion wrote:
> Paul Iadonisi wrote:
> >   And the sky is falling, too.  These threads are getting old.  
> 
> I would say the sky is falling for the user when their previously
> working Windows XP partition as completely unbootable.  I have not seen
> any fix short of wiping the partition table and losing the existing
> Windows XP partition.  Yes, the sky is falling for that user.  It's not
> just one or two people here, and it will be a significant number when
> the release goes live, if it has not been fixed.
> 
> If Microsoft released an upgrade for Windows that broke Linux
> installations in the same way, I think we know what the reaction would
> be.  Why shouldn't we strive to at least be better than Microsoft?
> 
> > I seriously doubt dual boot systems are a priority for Red Hat, nor
> > should they be.  A dual boot system, in principle, is a transition
> > configuration that need not be well supported in every release.  And
> > even as a transition, it's not a requirement for the majority of
> > installations.  Keep a separate Windows box (or boxen) around handle
> > the Windows-only requirements.
> 
> I guess we disagree there.  I see your viewpoint as being very elitist
> and short-sighted.  There are lots of reasons why a person would want to
> be able to boot both Windows XP and FC2 on a single box.  
> 
> My main concern is this problem did not exist in FC1.  Let's go over
> that again, since I've seen some people post that this is a Windows XP
> bug.  THIS PROBLEM DIDN'T SHOW UP IN FC1.
> 
> Something has changed in this release which has caused the problem. 
> Many users have already been affected.  The impact of this problem is a
> user ending up in a situation where they will not be able to get back
> into the Windows XP partition without some serious headaches.  I have
> not yet seen any solution presented for the problem, but I'd appreciate
> a link if you know of one.  I certainly looked around when I was hit
> with this about a week ago.
> 
> Cheers,
> Confushion

The best way around this is to not let grub install the boot record on the windows partition. 
I always install the grub boot record on a floppy disk. Now during the 
install of FC2 select to install on first linux partition. Likely it may not 
boot but you can do a linux rescue and then install grub on a floppy disk.
I do not let it install on the windows boot record.
This comes from experience.
-- 
James W. Bennett <silverhead at comcast.net>





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