Automating Dual Boot (Linux & NT) Installations

This paper presents a solution for automating dual boot installations on the PC with Linux and Windows NT 4.0. The process is automated to the extend that, one starts with a PC with blank hard disk and ends up with a fully customized dual boot PC. The process involves booting a PC with floppy disk; choosing what king of system is required from menu and then once the install begins, popping out the disk. The unattended PC goes through installing and customizing Linux installation first and then automatically boots into DOS and installs Window NT 4.0. Whole process takes about an hour or two (depending upon type of installation and network speed). After the process is complete, the PC is ready, fully customized to the local environment for use by the user. The solution presented in this paper can be used to do either Linux only or NT only installs in addition to dual boot installations.