License
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.
Introduction
Winux is a graphical configuration interface for the LOADLIN bootloader.
It has multi-language support including English, French, German, Italian,
Norwegian and Swedish.
Winux also allows you to configure several kernels (like LILO).
If the translation in your language doesn't exist or if you want to
update an old translation, you can easily create/edit the "translations\*.lge"
files : Click the "Edit" button in Options Window.
The order of the text strings is used to determine their place in
the UI, so it is important not to add or remove
lines and to keep the strings in the same order. I will be grateful if
you forward your translations to me so that I can make them available at
the Winux site.
NB: Winux automatically calculates the position of the various objects
in the user interface windows during the loading of "language.dat". It
is not necessary to keep the length of character strings constant.
Installation
First you will need to download Winux (binary or sources), uncompress and compile it (if you downloaded the source files) into any directory you chose. Winux does use and supply some external files which need to be in the same folder as the executable. Diskio.dll and autolin.dat are needed for the executable, and the translations subfolder is needed for the "Options" GUI.
Then click the options button
| ^ |
Choose "Automatic", verify the automatically generated configuration. Click "Ok", choose any kernel in the main window.
Click the penguin () to launch Linux.
If you have never used LOADLIN
LOADLIN is a program which loads the kernel's image file into memory,
then runs it as the BIOS would have done when starting the computer. Loadlin
will only run under DOS (not a DOS shell under Windows), and needs a copy
of your Linux kernel image on the DOS partition.
To get a copy of your Linux kernel onto the DOS partition you will
need to install Linux and make a boot disk so you can boot into Linux when
you need to. Once you have Linux running, open a terminal and type
cat /proc/mounts
Look in the list this creates for a line with something like
/dev/hda1 /mnt/dos auto, rw 0 0
It may be different for different systems, but the hda1 word is the important one (assuming your DOS partition is the first partition on the first hard drive). If you find this line then your distribution is one which automatically finds your DOS partition and mounts it for you (Mandrake 7.0 does this, for example). Anyone who has their DOS partition already mounted can skip this bit and go on to the section labelled "Copying your Kernel".
If your Windows partition is not mounted, you will need to create a mount point for it by typing
mkdir /mnt/win
to create a directory in /mnt (this is where you normally mount external filesystems). Then type
mount /dev/hda1 -t vfat /mnt/win
to mount your windows partition in that directory. This line uses the "mount" command to get Linux to read from the block device file (/dev/hda1) using the Microsoft FAT 16 or 32 filesystem (-t vfat) and make that partition available to us in the /mnt/win directory. You can check whether it has worked by typing
ls /mnt/win
to list the contents of your new mount point. If you see the contents of your C:\ drive listed, then you have succeeded and are ready to move to the next step. Otherwise, go back over the commands you have used and check for errors - remember you can use the up arrow key to review the history buffer of your shell.
Copying your Kernel
Once you have mounted your DOS partition you will need to copy your
Linux kernel to the DOS partition. The kernel is normally found in the
directory /boot, so type
ls -l /boot
to see what is in there. The -l option will give you a bit more information about the files than using ls by itself. Among the files listed you will see a couple starting with vmlinuz, perhaps followed by a series of numbers - something like
vmlinuz -->
vmlinuz-2.2.2.5
The file with the numbers after it is your actual Linux kernel. The other file with what looks like an arrow after it is a link to the kernel, and is used so you can change kernels without having to alter all the files which expect to find the old kernel version. For our purposes though, we need a copy of the kernel itself, so type
cp /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.2.5 /mnt/win/linux/boot
to copy your linux kernel to your windows partition. Remember that the kernel version number used here is for example only, and to make sure you use the version number of your own kernel instead. It may help if you use the "tab" key for filename completion. You may also need to use /mnt/dos instead of /mnt/win as the Windows partition mount point if your distribution has set up the partition mount for you.
Once you have copied the kernel to your Windows partition you can exit Linux by typing
reboot
which will reboot your computer. Make sure you have removed your boot disk from the floppy drive or your computer will boot back into Linux again instead of Windows.
Once you have booted back into Windows, use Explorer to select the vmlinuz-2.2.2.5 file in the C:\linux\boot folder. Rename this file as vmlinuz. This is not strictly necessary, but does make it easier to use the file under DOS's 8.3 file naming system, if you need to access it under DOS.
Configuration
Now we've finished our preparations (which we would have had to make
to use Loadlin by itself) we're ready to start with setting up Winux.
| Double click the Winux icon to start the program, then click on the Options button as shown on the right. At the moment, the kernel list is empty. We are going to add the kernel we have just copied from our Linux partition to the list. It is possible to have more than one kernel in the list, so if you want to experiment with different kernels, you can just repeat the procedure. Clicking the option button should bring up Winux's configuration page as shown below. | 
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When the options page first starts, all the fields on the form will be empty.
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You can add parameters to configure your kernel or change the comments in the other fields on this page. The changes you make are stored in a text file called "Winux.rc" which Winux looks at each time it is started. The other options are explained separately below.
Options
Path
This is the path to our kernel's image, in the case of our example, C:\linux\boot\vmlinuz. You do not have to type this in. Once you have browsed to the file, Winux will automatically store the path for you.
Name
This is the name which is displayed in the kernel list. You can change this to anything you want to, since it does not influence Winux's behaviour. It is a good idea to make the name descriptive of the kernel version you are adding.
Type of root and Root
Most of the time, Linux systems are installed on a separate partition which uses the EXT2 filesystem. If this is how your computer is set up, select "Partition" for the Root Type, then chose the partition Linux is installed on from the drop-down list alongside. In the example above we have selected the second partition of our first hard drive (/dev/hda2).
If you installed Linux on your DOS partition, using a filesystem such as UMSDOS, then you will need to choose "File". When you do this, the drop-down list will change to a Browse button. Click this button and browse to the folder in which the Linux filesystem is stored. If you have used the C:\linux folder for this purpose the path will be something like C:\linux\initrd.
Parameters
In the Parameters section you can include any command line arguments you want to be passed to the kernel. Each option must be separated from the next by a space. (for example: single root=/dev/hdb3 debug)
Comments
Comments are displayed to the right of the kernel's name when Winux is run. This section is entirely optional and does not influence Winux's behaviour.
Read Only
Selecting Read Only ensures your partition is initially mounted as read-only when Linux boots. that way, if your kernel fails during startup, your partition will not be damaged (this is the default, and the way Linux normally boots). In some instances, e2fsck may fail while starting. If this occurs you will need to uncheck this option, and e2fsck will then ask you if you really want to launch it on the Read-Write mounted partition. Answering Yes will allow you to avoid e2fsck and start Linux. This problem may happen if you have tried to launch Linux with a kernel not supporting transparent filesystem compression on a compressed root partition (http://www.netspace.net.au/~reiter/e2compr/).
Loadlin
Click on the Loadlin button and browse to the folder where you unzipped
the
Loadlin excutable. In our example this is C:\linux\boot\loadlin.exe.
Language
Read the topic "Multilingual support" to learn how to add a translation file.
How to launch Linux ?
| Just click on the Penguin (),
and stand back! |
|