Order of Dual Boot

digiman

Is there any way that i can change the order that my laptop boots up in. I have Linux and Windows XP Professional installed but Linux always comes on first as it is at the top. How can I change this so that Windows would be my default start up?

Alvis

Which bootloader are you using?

digiman

I have no idea to be honest, how do you check this?

Alvis

Well it usually says like "X" bootloader loading when you initially boot. Like GRUB or Lilo bootloader version whatever. But it doesn't matter.

Okay... Which distribution (SuSe, Ubuntu, Mandrake, etc) of Linux are you using then? Maybe I can tell which bootloader that distribution uses by default and guide you through...

MrPinK

Given that you seem to be a linux beginner, I'll hazard a guess that you are using one of the beginner friendly distros which generally tend to use Grub. If that's the case then you'll need to edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst. The file should be fairly well commented about what everything does, but the line you're looking for is the one that says "default 0", or some other number. Just change the value to the number that XP appears in the list, i.e. if XP Pro is the 3rd option in the list then change it to "default 2" (they start at 0).

digiman

I found this file ok, but it will not let me change the file permissions on it so I can edit the file. It is under root, so I logged of and tried logging on as the root user but I do not know what the password is, how do I go about and change this?

Giblet

You shouldn't have to log in as root to open the file. Open a term session and type 'SU' press enter and then enter your password. Use VI to open the file.

If you forget your password you're pretty screwed unless you do a reinstall.

Explosive_Cornflake

You'll need root password to go su. Default password is root, if you changed it and forgot it, then, your were a bit silly really.