If you elect to make the hard disk boot directly to Linux, you will
be asked to install a master boot record. If you aren’t using a boot
manager (and this is probably the case if you don’t know what a boot
manager is) and you don’t have another different operating system on
the same machine, answer “Yes” to this question. Note that if you
answer “Yes,” you won’t be able to boot into DOS normally on your
machine, for instance. Be careful. If you answer “Yes,” the next
question will be whether you want to boot Linux automatically from
the hard disk when you turn on your system. This sets Linux to be
the _bootable partition_—the one that will be loaded from the hard
disk.
Note that multiple operating system booting on a single machine is
still something of a black art. This book does not even attempt to
document the various boot managers, which vary by architecture and
even by sub-architecture. You should see your boot manager’s
documentation for more information. Remember: When working with the
boot manager, you can never be too careful.
The standard i386 boot loader is called “LILO.” It is a complex
program that offers lots of functionality, including DOS, NT, and
OS/2 boot management. To find out more about this functionality, you
can read the documentation in /usr/doc/lilo after your system is set
up.