By "three-way" I mean triple boot, of course! I know I just can't shut up about Linux, but I am so enamored of both SuSE and Mepis that I decided to use two old hard drives -- one partitioned with Windows 2000 and SuSE Linux; the other with Mepis Linux. SuSE comes with the GRUB boot loader. (A free System Commmander for geeks.) When you start up, it defaults to SuSE, but can customize the boot scripts to show -- and boot -- any other OS you might have.

Getting it to recognize and boot Windows 2000 as an alternative to SuSE was not a problem, but with Mepis on the other drive it was hellish. It just didn't want to boot the damned Mepis kernel, no matter how many times I tried rewriting the script. You have to remember that (hd1,0) is /dev/hdb1, and it must point to the kernel, and while I wrote it again and again and thought I had it right, I think the spacing was the problem. (Don't guess on spaces; use TAB!) Anyway, after the twelfth rewrite, finally, WHOOOSH! The Mepis kernel exploded into view and flooded the black screen with files. It works fine now, and I am writing this from the Mepis OS, on it's first boot from the GRUB loader!

A virgin post from a virgin boot!

I kept reading that writing to GRUB is not for beginners, but it's really quite logical, once you realize that improper spacing will mess you up.

Enough geekery!

(Even if it's the only three-way I've had in decades....)

UPDATE: While it really hurts, I must acknowledge that not all bloggers share my interest in Linux. A previous post about Linux even upset a fellow blogger to the point of personal injury. Here's Harvey, whose claim I take most seriously:

I pulled a muscle from all the intense not caring I did while perusing this post.

But hey, in my defense, at least I have tried to sex things up!