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User: QuiNNa

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  1. Nifty tricks ... on XOSL, an alternative to Lilo and Grub · · Score: 1

    I've been using XOSL for quite a while now, I use a usb mouse, and I install it on many of the systems I've dealt with.

    the mouse issue is easy....You don't necessarily need one. The key bindings are fairly similar to the usual standards for gui's, tab to go between clickables, enter or space usually to press buttons or change selections, and once its set up you can switch between anything set up with simple cursor key and enter key manipulation. If I had a non usb mouse it'd just slow things down anyway.

    Skimming through the above posts I've yet to notice two features (though I may of overlooked) as well of great use. The partition manager and cd boot software included can be handy at times, especially I'm thinking that the ability to boot off a cd is something missing of older systems that don't know how to boot from cd through the bios. The other use is to use the partition hiding feature to run things in ways they were never intended. My example is during a transition from one version of windows to another for any reason. Installing say, windows 98 and me on the same system would result in mayhem, but create two partitions on the same drive, hide first one when booting off the second and you can switch between happily using XOSL to fake the bios drive numbers and fool windows... Use a another parition as a shared data area and its even not too hard to get data across. Major usage: driver testing under different systems where a format and reinstall would just be plain overdoing it.

    Other than that, those suggesting it as a replacement for lilo (or any other boot sector loader) might want to check the dry theory on booting wherever it is in the HOWTO's. The base use of XOSL is to boot sectors from another partition where XOSL is on the MBR (equivalent to the bootsector on /dev/hda (wd0c if I remember right on other variations of similar os's :-) ), whereas each partition has its own boot record to its own system (so lilo exists on the same partition as /boot usually, although nothing stopping it being on any other partition except silly limits not worth mentioning now ....)