"I also wanted to test out the current state of FreeDOS
(a GNU GPL-licensed operating system that emulates parts of MS-DOS
3.3 and MS-DOS 6.0). I did try installing ReactOS 0.3.7 instead of
Windows on one of the systems, but I ran into installation problems
I couldn't work around (a topic for a later column, perhaps), owing
no doubt to the immaturity of the ("alpha") software. Homebuilt
computers for Christmas
"Many years ago, before there was GRUB, Linux was usually loaded
by LILO. Although LILO worked just fine as a "LInux LOader", it
wasn't much of a "GRand Unified Bootloader", and so creating a
dual-boot Linux/Windows system was not so easy. I did it at the
time using a DOS/Windows program called LOADLIN.EXE that started
the boot-loading process for Linux from the DOS/Windows environment
on the computer. That was using Windows 3.1, in about 2000, more or
less at the same time I started using Linux myself. I set up a
shared computer for my children then, and although they were still
essentially using Windows games and applications, I wanted to
introduce them to the GNU/Linux programs that I was learning as
well."
