hello people!
I want to install suse linux but i dont want to use lilo, intead i was looking for a boot manager that is hidden and boots windows normally (i know there are many w/ timeouts but thats my last choice) unless a hotkey like F8 is pressed, then it either boots suse or brings up a menu. Ive been looking for something like that for ages. So please if anyone can help me then reply. Thanx 
suse uses grub now by default. it times out and by default boots linux. however you can change the time out length aswell as what the default boot selection is.
Ummm... i knew that..
Soo... i was looking for one that doest actually do anything until a hotkey is pressed. if nothing is done then it just boots windows. Its like windows' built in F8 where u can run command prompt and safe mode and stuff. Ill use grub probably cuz there arent any hidden ones. The fist program im gonna write will be a hidden boot manager!! well.... the first boot manager ill write will be a hidden one... 
:rolleyes:
i am sure you can configure grub to do all that for you.
theres always lilo -R desired_os/kernel_to_boot.
this tells lilo just to skip a menu, and timeouts for one boot, into an os you choose. other than that, i dont know of anything else.
I have a solution for you.
I have a MSI K7t266pro2 motherboard. When the computer boots there is a "F11 - Boot Menu" option that you can press. It is availabe at the same time that the hit "del" to go to BIOS comes up.
Anyway when I hit F11 I can pick what drive (HD1, HD2, Floppy, CDROM,Etc.) I want the computer to boot from. I have Win 98 on HD1 and Linux on HD2. I installed grub on HD2 with a 1 sec delay before it starts linux.
Normaly with no interference from me it will always boot win 98 as if there was no other operating system.
If I hit F11 I can then choose HD2 and Boot from that drive to go to Linux when I need it.
The only problem with this idea is that it is motherboard specific, the MSI boards are the only ones that I have seen with the boot menu option.
It isn't clear to me whether you have partitioned 1 hard drive, and loaded xp on one partition and linux on another; or if you are using 2 hard drives with one o/s on each. Pls let us know.
When I was dual-booting, I had a boot floppy rather than installing the boot info on the HD. I.e., no floppy led to the default of Win98, but if the floppy was in at boot time, I got a menu (first lilo, later grub). This rendered my Unix OS (RH at the time) invisible to Windows, and Win virus checkers didn't object since the partition couldn't be mounted from Windows and the boot sector contained the standard MS boot program.
I dunno....
Ill just use some boot manager after installing the lilo/grub/whateva to hda2... but im looking for something alot like that motherboard specific one... Can anyone give me hints for making a boot manager? jk
thanx anyways
What do you mean? You want to check the motherboard information?