Arch Linux

Jerry

Member

From: Philippines

Registered: 2007-09-14

Posts: 126

1 boot partition for everything.

Is there a way that I can use 1 boot partition for all my distro? and can the swap and boot be logical partition too?

byte

Member

From: Düsseldorf (DE)

Registered: 2006-05-01

Posts: 2,046

Re: 1 boot partition for everything.

"Yes" for your last question. For the first part, hm, that really depends on the distros. You'd have to make sure that there won't be any file conflicts (Grub deserves special attention here).

Last edited by byte (2007-10-16 09:06:31)

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Jerry

Member

From: Philippines

Registered: 2007-09-14

Posts: 126

Re: 1 boot partition for everything.

Can it be done in arch?  The other distro is the recent version of Slackware that I wanted to try out.  I thought it was just a matter of partitioning, but it seems like you cannot have 2 boot partitions.  And yet if you do not make any boot partition everything works and both distro can booted with grub. So what am I missing here?

retsaw

Member

From: London, UK

Registered: 2005-03-22

Posts: 132

Re: 1 boot partition for everything.

In general you don't need boot partitions.  Although there are some cases where you do, such as when you use an encrypted root partition or your root partition uses LVM.  All you need to do is pick which distro's GRUB is installed to the MBR, then add an entry for the other distro in it's menu.lst file.

Last edited by retsaw (2007-10-16 13:58:32)

Jerry

Member

From: Philippines

Registered: 2007-09-14

Posts: 126

Re: 1 boot partition for everything.

Thanks for all the feedback, I will not install a boot partition next time as it seems useless in my case.

I've read about a minute basic security advantage of having a \boot when you are getting cracked, might be interesting to some

http://www.docdroppers.org/wiki/index.p … e_Security

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: 1 boot partition for everything.

It's easier to keep the distros completely separate, sharing a boot might be problematic.

When you install a second linux distro, install the bootloader onto the distro's / partition rather than the MBR. Then boot back into the primary distro, and add the secondary one to the bootloader with the same syntax as you would use to add windows in.

You have to get through 2 bootloaders to get to the second distro, but it's quick, easy and keeps them separate.

As for what that site said, that's pointless. If someone get's into your system, you've got far more to worry about than your /boot partition and kernel. They can get kernel access easily enough by installing a rogue kernel module anyway (kmods kept in /lib/modules). Once they get access you should assume that *everything* is compromised unless you can prove otherwise.

James

Last edited by iphitus (2007-10-17 07:18:17)