Booting multiple OSes?

[motorollin]

McVenco wrote:
1. How do I set up a bootmenu where I can choose between those OSes (Windows included of course)?

When you install Linux, for example, it will install the LILO or GRUB bootloader. Many distros will scan your disks for OSes and automatically configure the bootloader to boot any OSes it recognises. If it doesn't do this, or if there are OSes it doesn't know how to boot, you may need to configure the bootloader manually (check LILO or GRUB documentation for more details on how to do this).

McVenco wrote:
Is that even possible with 2 harddrives or do the OSes need to be on one single harddrive to be chosen from?

They can exist on different disks as long as the bootloader is correctly configured so it can find the OS.

McVenco wrote:
2. I currently have a 160GB harddrive with Windows XP Pro (Sp1) on it. However, it would only let me format it to 128GB (or somewhere around that). Is this a BIOS problem, or a flaw in XP? How do I fix it? I'd rather not install SP2 since my mouse and printer don't work correctly with that.

You probably chose to format it as FAT32. If you format it as NTFS it should let you create a larger partition.

McVenco wrote:
3. Any other (free) OSes you might suggest taking a look at? Any specification may do (even discontinued ones such as BeOS), as long as I can run it on my Athlon XP2000+ with 256MB RAM (or 512 - I don't need it yet but I might as well upgrade), and as long as they are fun to use :-)

BeOS/Haiku
Ubuntu
AROS
OSX86
AmigaForever KXLight

Should keep you busy for a while :-)

--
moto

[motorollin]

I think it comes with both actually, and gives you the option of which one to use when you install the OS. Which one you choose will depend on which OSes you want to be able to boot, as each bootloader has different capabilities. You would need to check the documentation for each bootloader to check which one is right for you. There are also tools which can help you to add/remove OSes from the bootloader without having to edit config files, which can be confusing (and possibly dangerous). One of those tools might even come with Ubuntu.

(Sorry I can't be more specific - it's been a while since I've used Ubuntu, and a loooooong time since I've manually edited a bootloader!)

--
moto