Arch Linux

cbeans

Member

Registered: 2011-04-16

Posts: 2

Dual Booting With Ubuntu

Hey all,

I've been using and loving Ubuntu for like a year now, but have recently felt a compulsion to explore other Linux distros and see what all the world has to offer. Arch has a lot of appeal for me, so I want to let up my Asus Eee 1000HE to dual boot these two in beautiful harmony. Having carved out a ~15 Gb partition for Arch, I was wondering if anyone could guide me through the process of installing to this partition and sharing the swap space with Ubuntu.

Here's what things look like in Gparted:
MOD EDIT -- Please follow image posting guidelines from the forum etiquette

And here's Disk Util:
MOD EDIT -- Please follow image posting guidelines from the forum etiquette

As you may notice in the last image, Arch managed to slap its name onto my Ubuntu partition as well as the other one, though it is installed on neither. I'm not sure how this happened, but no doubt it arose from my own stupidity in poking around with Arch's partitioning and file system creation tools.

Anyway, the point of all this: can anyone give me pointers for how to proceed? Specifically, how do I set up all of the aforementioned swap sharing and do I need to create a \boot partition independently (using Gparted or some such software)? Thanks for the help in advance, and if you have any resources that would help me to learn more about properly establishing partitions, please let me know.

oboedad55

Member

From: Baku

Registered: 2011-04-05

Posts: 392

Re: Dual Booting With Ubuntu

I'm dual-booting too. I used Gparted to create the partitions for Arch adn made a /boot /root /home and used the existing /swap. /boot doesn't need to be very big. I used the beginners guide from the Arch wiki, which is excellent;
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide. I also installed the Arch grub to the /root partition so I could continue to use Ubuntu's boot manager. When you run "update-grub" it will find the Arch install. I'm enjoying Arch quite a bit, it's highly configurable and very fast. You can install any de or wm you want. I hope this helps. I think you'll find a very vibrant and helpful community here.

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Registered Linux user #436067

stlarch

Member

From: hell

Registered: 2010-12-25

Posts: 1,265

Re: Dual Booting With Ubuntu

Try searching the wiki for grub or grub2. The Arch wiki is the best and very helpful.

sand_man

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-06-10

Posts: 2,164

Re: Dual Booting With Ubuntu

swap can be shared easily in any distro. Just change your /etc/fstab file. Just have your swap entry on both distro's point to the same partition (swap partition).
You don't need a seperate /boot partition. It will probably be easier to let Arch have /boot in the / partition the same as your Ubuntu install.

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oboedad55

Member

From: Baku

Registered: 2011-04-05

Posts: 392

Re: Dual Booting With Ubuntu

swap can be shared easily in any distro. Just change your /etc/fstab file. Just have your swap entry on both distro's point to the same partition (swap partition).
You don't need a seperate /boot partition. It will probably be easier to let Arch have /boot in the / partition the same as your Ubuntu install.

I had to make a separate /boot or the installer failed. I believe I saw a bug report to that effect mentioned elsewhere on these forums.

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Registered Linux user #436067

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,354

Re: Dual Booting With Ubuntu

swap can be shared easily in any distro. Just change your /etc/fstab file. Just have your swap entry on both distro's point to the same partition (swap partition).
You don't need a seperate /boot partition. It will probably be easier to let Arch have /boot in the / partition the same as your Ubuntu install.

Just make sure not to share swap if you're using it for hibernation and wish to leave an image on it. In which case you shouldn't even be booting to your other boot (unless it does not mount any of the same partitions).

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Allan-Volunteer on the (topic being discussed) mailn lists. You never get the people who matters attention on the forums.
jasonwryan-Installing Arch is a measure of your literacy. Maintaining Arch is a measure of your diligence. Contributing to Arch is a measure of your competence.
Griemak-Bleeding edge, not bleeding flat. Edge denotes falls will occur from time to time. Bring your own parachute.

cbeans

Member

Registered: 2011-04-16

Posts: 2

Re: Dual Booting With Ubuntu

Thanks for the help, everyone. It seems like I have a fair amount of work setting up partitions here for myself. I previously didn't have a boot partition, so I'm currently carving that out at the start of the disk. Currently my soon-to-be-Arch space is about 13 Gb, but I think I may up the size on that just to give me some more space to play around with. If I'm understanding things correctly, I should divide this space between / and /home partitions, so any suggestions for a good ratio coming from around 20 Gb to work with? Or am I missing out on any critical steps that are going to make setting up all of this rather difficult? Recall I've already got 3 Gb of swap from Ubuntu, so I imagine that I tell the installer that I just want to share that?

Thanks once more.