Multi Boot

See the following sites on multibooting ,there should be no spaces in the URL
1)www.wwnet.net/~stevelim/booting.html
2)www.linuxgazette.com/issue47/deblende.html
3)www.winplanet.com/winplanet/tutorials/737/1
4)www.annoyances.org
5)www.tweak3d.net/articles/multibootlinux
6)http://disc.server.com/Indices/122064.html
7)http://windows.about.com/cs/dualboot
8)http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/help.html

Third party software that would be helpful
1)Partition Commander
2)Partition Magic

Win9x needs a primary partition to boot from, and you can set up WinNT as a dual-boot option (i.e. boot.ini and ntloader on C:\, installing into folder \WinNT instead of \Windows ). To install the Win2K OSes as well, I'd recommend using PartitionMagic or similar to set up various hidden primary partitions, then unhide and activate a different one as needed via BootMagic or similar. The Linux install can be put on yet another primary partition. Keep those all relatively small, so you don't hit the 1024 cylinder boundary - you can always put apps on logical drives towards the rear of the drive.

To share data between Win98 and NT4, you need a FAT partition. This would be accessible by all the other OSes as well.

I guess you want to do this to test application compatibility and performance with the various OSes. Be aware that 20GB isn't much if you are planning on installing various applications to all of these, as you will need to keep the installations completely separate to avoidinteractions between the OSes.

Windows 98 indeed needs a primary boot partition. for the other MS OS's I's use seperate logical drives. WinNT and the Win2k OS's automatically install a simple multi-boot tool that recognises at least the previous Windows OS's.
I'm not quite sure about Linux, it may be that you need to make another hidden Primary partition.
If you need to access a common data partition you need to make it a FAT-partition cause that's the only File-system that all those OS's support.

Good Luck,

Fraz

as long as you create a seperate partition for each OS and install from oldest to newest (Win98, NT, 2k pro, 2k server,linux) you should be okay.
you can access the win98 data from the 2k pro and server OS, unless it's a FAT16, which means NT will be able to see it.