choice of boot manager

[Jud]

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:09:04 +0000, Peter Risdon <peter at circlesquared.com>  
wrote:

> Lee_Shackelford at dot.ca.gov wrote:
>
>> not know.  Any information about positive or negative experiences with  
>> any
>> of these programs in a multiple operating system configuration would be
>> appreciated.
> This isn't on your list, but I tried using the romantically named "gag"  
> graphical bootloader
>
> http://gag.sourceforge.net/
>
> after a few probs with an OpenBSD/W98 installation, and found it  
> extremely good. It's what I use for customers' dual boot machines now  
> because it's quick to install, easy to configure, reliable and pretty.

GAG is more automagic than the others you've named, and I think it is a  
good choice.  Ranish shouldn't be used unless you know a *lot* about  
partitioning.  Otherwise it's darned easy to mess things up.  GRUB is  
worthwhile - a good learning experience precisely because it is not  
automagic.  FreeBSD's BootEasy and the NT bootloader both work, though you  
have to learn how to configure the NT loader, and BootEasy is bare-bones.

I currently use GAG with no problems at all to boot -STABLE, -CURRENT,  
Slackware Linux, Windows 2000 and Windows 98 on a system with a RAID-0  
array and a third hard drive.  It finds all the OSs itself; all you have  
to do is assign a number to each.  (To boot Linux, you must install Lilo  
or Grub to the kernel partition.)  Hit a number on the keyboard when GAG's  
screen comes up, and the corresponding OS boots.  Easy as that.

Jud