Installation Order for Win XP Pro, SuSE 9.2, & FreeBSD 5.3

[Konrad Heuer]

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005, Bob Perry wrote:

> I intend to re-install multiple operating systems onto a box
> which already has Win XP Pro and SuSE 9.2.  After some thought,
> I've decided to add FreeBSD 5.3 and, in addition, change the
> Win XP Pro filesytem from NTFS to FAT32 to facilitate file-
> sharing.  If I understand what I've been reading, I should be
> able to modify both the Linux and FreeBSD kernels to read and/or
> write ext2fs and UFS1 data as well.
>
> I'm prepared to clear the harddrive and start from scratch and I
> question whether or not there is a prescribed order for
> installation.  I understand that Windows has a habit of
> overwriting data in the MBR and installing its' own loader so
> the recommendation is to load it first.  Whether, Linux or FreeBSD
> is next I'm not sure and would welcome your input.
>
> I realize that there are third-party bootloaders available, but
> I have a feeling that I can learn more about these systems if I
> work with what they offer.
>
> I have a 120GB Western Digital HD, an ASUS P4P800-VM motherboard,
> and a Pentium 2.8GHz CPU.
>
> This is not currently my primary box, but who knows what may happen
> in the near future.
>
> Thanks in advance.  This is a huge undertaking for me at this time.
>
> Bob Perry

I'd prefer the order XP, FreeBSD, Linux. This is because both XP and
FreeBSD can easily get a primary partition this way, and because - to my
mind - lilo is a good boot manager to start all three os. Thus, install
Linux at last, and install lilo into the MBR. I don't know grub but I
guess, lilo can still be used with SuSE.

Regards

Konrad Heuer
GWDG, Am Fassberg, 37077 Goettingen, Germany, kheuer2 at gwdg.de