I share a laptop with the GF and she doesn’t want anything other than Win XP (please don’t go into discussions on how to convert her). I want to put OpenSUSE on that laptop but I want to make it so it’s not only a dual boot but it defaults to running windows if the user does nothing on startup. How would I do this?
After openSUSE is installed, you can go to YaST > System > Boot loader, and then select windows, and also select “set as default”. That will ensure Windows is the default boot. Note grub will be briefly present during the boot process.
use GRUB as boot loader in MBR
a) SuSE selection at bootloader, make Windows ‘default’ set time to say 15 seconds (default 8 second sis to short to select)
save to MBR
b) alternate
load SuSE with Grub to MBR , then SuSE selected as default.
enter Suse as Root , use consol, gedit (as root bu su ,password , gedit,and edit in /boot/grub/menu 1st
Set default as number for windows, and set time for say 30 seconds.
See example :
Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sun Dec 7 20:23:06 GMT 2008
default 2 {{NOTE this sets Windows as auto default]}
timeout 30 {[time to select SUSE in boot screen]}
gfxmenu (hd1,8)/boot/message
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.0 - 2.6.25.18-0.2
root (hd1,8)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.18-0.2-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_IC35L080AVVA07-_VNC402A4GYSTZG-part9 resume=/dev/sdb7 splash=silent showopts vga=0x317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.18-0.2-pae
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe – openSUSE 11.0 - 2.6.25.18-0.2
root (hd1,8)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.18-0.2-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_IC35L080AVVA07-_VNC402A4GYSTZG-part9 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off x11failsafe vga=0x317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.18-0.2-pae
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,8)
chainloader (hd0,0)
End example
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Just install (backup first… things can go wrong) and then set windows
to be the default either via Yast: System: Boot Loader (or something
like that) or directly in /boot/grub/menu.lst (change default to ‘1’
most likely but your system may be slightly different).
Good luck.
6tr6tr wrote:
> I share a laptop with the GF and she doesn’t want anything other than
> Win XP (please don’t go into discussions on how to convert her). I want
> to put OpenSUSE on that laptop but I want to make it so it’s not only a
> dual boot but it defaults to running windows if the user does nothing on
> startup. How would I do this?
>
>
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Thanks for all the replies!
Questions:
- Any recommendations on where to install it?
- Are there any formatting issues I need to be aware of?
- Can I make it “invisible” to her in WinXP filesystem?
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- It’ll repartition your drive… thus the recommendation to backup.
- Yes… it’s going to change partitions. This is always dangerous.
Defragment windows’ drive(s) before doing this and have a backup. - windows isn’t smart enough to see Linux… no worries here once you
setup windows to boot by default.
Good luck.
6tr6tr wrote:
> Thanks for all the replies!
>
> Questions:
>
> 1. Any recommendations on where to install it?
> 2. Are there any formatting issues I need to be aware of?
> 3. Can I make it “invisible” to her in WinXP filesystem?
>
>
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