HD Install :: Loadlin and DSL?

I sometimes have the oportunity to work in a lab of primarily windows users and I have been given permision to load linux on some of the PC's there. They must maintain Windows XP as the primary OS and TweakUI must continue to work so I am a little concerned about using lilo. So to make it easier on the users, many of which are beginners to windows and know nothing of linux I would like to be able to create a shortcut in XP to allow them to boot DSL linux from the hard drive so the CD drive is free. The primary tool I have seen used for this type of thing is loadlin which I have no idea how to use. Are there any guides on this topic? or could anyone help me in this matter? I will also need to know the DSL install options will be required.Partitioning is somewhat flexible. I have taken a UNIX/LINUX class and learned some commandline but still consider myself somewhat new to linux.

You cannot use loadlin from inside WindowsXP

You must use it from booting into a true MSDOS prompt like is available in MSDOS, Windows95 or Windows 98.

However, you can create a MSDOS boot disk and put loadlin on to it.

I think I found a solution to my problem. Keep and mind I haven't tried this yet so it may still fail. It involves creating a small FAT partition on the hard drive that could be as small as 1MB and making it bootable with just IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, and COMMAND.COM. After this I intend to make a batch file to modify my BOOT.INI to boot from this new partition and restart the computer. I will then create a Autoexec.bat on this new partition that will undo the changes to boot.ini and start up loadlin thus starting DSL.This should allow me to get back into xp when I reboot again. If I get a chance to test this and it works I will let you know and you might be able to include it in some sort of guide for future use.

I suppose it might work.

But given the complexity of the task I would rather just use an alternative bootloader and boot manager like GRUB + SMART BOOT MANAGER or LILO + SMART BOOT MANAGER

You can install GRUB or LILO so that they will not reside on the MBR.

And you can launch S.B.M. from a floppy disk and not touch your MBR

It's not too hard I think.

www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html
www.littlewhitedog.com/content-52.html

This distro is very slim on features, you might have more luck with KDE. Also, if your windows machines are not configured properly it is possiable for users to use linux to access restricted information.

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