-> JK> The PCboard nodes connect ... blah blah blah

-> that's pretty deep...

Nah, not so much.  But something to be geeky proud of is my test box
partition setup:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1e861e85

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1           1        8001    a  OS/2 Boot
/dev/sda2               2         255     2040255    6  FAT16
/dev/sda3             256         509     2040255   16  Hidden FAT16
/dev/sda4             510        9729    74059650    5  Extended
/dev/sda5   *         510         511       16033+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6             512        1018     4072446   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7            1019        2017     8024436   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda8            2018        2524     4072446   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda9            2525        6259    30001356    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sda10           6260        7200     7558551    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda11           7201        8141     7558551    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda12           8142        9082     7558551   a9  NetBSD
/dev/sda13           9083        9101      152586   83  Linux
/dev/sda14           9102        9602     4024251   83  Linux
/dev/sda15           9603        9729     1020096   82  Linux swap


Getting OS/2, grub, and two DOS boot partitions to coexist on the same
disk is difficult, but not impossbile.  The trick was putting grub in a
small logical patition (sda5). That actually works. Whoa!

Partitions 6 and 8 boot different versions of OS/2, partition 7 is an
HPFS data partition they share.

Partition 2 boots DOS 6.22, or Windows 2000 in partition 10.

Partition 3 boots DOS 7 / Windows 98.

And of course there is NetBSD and linux.

OS/2 boot manager is the primary boot; from there you can boot either
version of OS/2, or boot into grub in partition 5. From the grub boot
manager, you boot into everything else. The key is letting OS/2 boot
manager be at the top of the boot chain. That's the only way it can all
work.

It's wild, maybe crazy.  But it's proof of hardware stability when you
can get all these different operating systems running on it.

--- PCBoard (R) v15.4/M 250 Beta
 * Origin: Torres Vedras - Portugal (2:362/6)