2. IMPORTANT: Preliminary Information and Setup

2.1 WARNING! for Windows95 OSR2 (version 4.00.950b) users:

Do NOT attempt dual booting with Windows 95 without first consulting the Windows 95 OSR2 FAQ. The FAQ also contains a great deal of information regarding FAT32. In a nutshell, if you have OSR2 and are using a FAT16 file system, you can still dual boot using the F4 Function Key.

NOTE: If you have Windows 95 OSR2, and are using a FAT32 file system, then the dual booting methods in this mini-HOWTO using the F4 Function Key will not work and should not be attempted.

However, there are a couple of alternate methods you can use to automate booting Linux at startup, which are discussed in Section 6.

2.2 Things that are assumed:

• You have successfully installed Windows 95.
• Windows 95 is installed on Drive C.
• You have successfully installed Linux.
• You know what partition Linux is installed on.
• LILO is NOT installed on your hard drive.
• If you are using Windows 95 OSR2 (version 4.00.950b), you have carefully read the Windows95 OSR2 FAQ.

2.3 Items you need before you start:

• A bootable floppy disk with DOS 5.0 or DOS 6.x system files (io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com) and a config.sys file. If you are using a DOS 5.0 boot disk, you will also need an autoexec.bat file. If you are using Windows 95 OSR2 (version 4.00.950b), you will also need to create a file called Winboot.sys with a text editor and place it in the root directory of Drive C. Winboot.sys can be an empty file, just so long as you have the file.

NOTE: If your hard drive already contains the autoexec.dos, config.dos, io.dos, msdos.dos, and command.dos files, then you will not need the floppy. You can check by typing: dir and dir /ah at the root of Drive C. Also, if you installed the upgrade version of Windows 95, then it is likely that you have them.

• The Loadlin.exe program file
• Your kernel image file,usually zImage or vmlinuz. (See the FAQ for info).
• A simple text editor, such as Notepad.