Installing and Using FreeBSD With Other Operating Systems

6 August 1996

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This document discusses how to make FreeBSD coexist nicely with other popular operating systems such as Linux, MS-DOS®, OS/2®, and Windows® 95. Special thanks to: Annelise Anderson , Randall Hopper , and Jordan K. Hubbard .


Table of Contents
1 Overview
2 Overview of Boot Managers
3 A Typical Installation
4 Special Considerations
5 Examples
6 Other Sources of Help
7 Technical Details

1 Overview

Most people can not fit these operating systems together comfortably without having a larger hard disk, so special information on large EIDE drives is included. Because there are so many combinations of possible operating systems and hard disk configurations, the Section 5 section may be of the most use to you. It contains descriptions of specific working computer setups that use multiple operating systems.

This document assumes that you have already made room on your hard disk for an additional operating system. Any time you repartition your hard drive, you run the risk of destroying the data on the original partitions. However, if your hard drive is completely occupied by DOS, you might find the FIPS utility (included on the FreeBSD CDROM in the \TOOLS directory or via ftp) useful. It lets you repartition your hard disk without destroying the data already on it. There is also a commercial program available called PartitionMagic®, which lets you size and delete partitions without consequence.