Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

windtalker · 2008-03-17 15:57:44

I'm running PCLinuxOS as my primary system at the moment.
I have my partitions set up the way I want them as I've dual booted and triple booted before with other Linux distro's.
I'm trying to figure out how to edit grub properly from either PCLinuxOS or Arch to get both distro's to boot.
I've tried NOT installing grub from Arch and editing as I normally would from PCLOS.
I've installed Grub and tried editing from Arch.
I've tried editing during the install of grub from Arch.
I'm getting the editing command lines wrong when not installing grub with Arch I already know.
At the moment my menu.lst from pclos looks like this:

timeout 05
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/usr/share/gfxboot/themes/pclinuxos/boot/message
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=/dev/hda1 acpi=on resume=/dev/hda3 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title Arch Linux (Main)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda5 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=/dev/hda1 acpi=on resume=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/hda1 failsafe acpi=on resume=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.img

My partition table is this:

hda 1= / pclos
hda 2=/home pclos
hda 3=swap
hda4= ext
hda5=/boot arch
hda6= /home arch

Note: I havn't installed Arch again to see if the above menu.lst will work.
Is anyone else dual booting with PCLOS?
If so, how did you do it and what did you enter into which grub to do it?

Last edited by windtalker (2008-03-17 19:07:33)

slackhack · 2008-03-17 17:05:44

where is your arch / directory? something looks wrong.

Misfit138 · 2008-03-17 17:07:22

You told us where /boot and /home are, but you did not include where Arch's / is.
Note that grub's root is /boot, and the path to the kernel and initrd are relative to grub's root. So if /boot is on a separate partition, the path and filename of the kernel would simply be /vmlinuz26, and initrd would be /kernel26.img. If / and /boot are on the same partition, the path and filename would be /boot/vmlinuz26, /boot/kernel26.img.

slackhack · 2008-03-17 17:16:08

Misfit138 wrote:

You told us where /boot and /home are, but you did not include where Arch's / is.
Note that grub's root is /boot, and the path to the kernel and initrd are relative to grub's root. So if /boot is on a separate partition, the path and filename of the kernel would simply be /vmlinuz26, and initrd would be /kernel26.img. If / and /boot are on the same partition, the path and filename would be /boot/vmlinuz26, /boot/kernel26.img.

exactly - and I'm assuming arch is on hda4, but I didn't want to assume too much. another point is that if /boot is already the root filesystem on hda5, wouldn't it be just vmlinuz26, etc. with no preceding slash?

So if those two questions are yes, then I think menu.lst entry should look something like this:

title  Arch Linux (Main)
root   (hd0,3)
kernel vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda5 ro vga=773
initrd kernel26.img

and if vmlinuz26 and kernel26 do in fact require the leading slash, just add them.

windtalker · 2008-03-17 17:24:51

I followed the beginners guide which didn't mention / at all, which confused the heck out of me.
The intentions are to place the Arch kernel on hda5 and hda6 will be /home for Arch.
Based on the replies, if I make hda5=/ , hda6=/home and not install grub, I can reflect this on my current grub as:

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/hda1 failsafe acpi=on resume=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

And this should work?
[hda3 is swap]

Last edited by windtalker (2008-03-17 17:27:56)

Misfit138 · 2008-03-17 17:38:29

slackhack wrote:

.. if /boot is already the root filesystem on hda5, wouldn't it be just vmlinuz26, etc. with no preceding slash?

Hmm. No, it should be quite the opposite. If /boot is merely a directory under root (/), then both the kernel and initrd's path must be implicit like so : /boot/vmlinuz26 and /boot/kernel26.img...unless I am misunderstanding you.
If /boot is a separate partition, then it would simply be a filename preceded by a slash, being relative to GRUB's root, (/boot). Whether it would work without a slash is a good question. I'm not on a *nix box right now, so I can't verify this.

So if those two questions are yes, then I think menu.lst entry should look something like this:
title  Arch Linux (Main)
root   (hd0,3)
kernel vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda5 ro vga=773
initrd kernel26.img
and if vmlinuz26 and kernel26 do in fact require the leading slash, just add them.

As soon as he tells us where / is, we'll set him straight.

slackhack · 2008-03-17 17:39:27

windtalker wrote:

I followed the beginners guide which didn't mention / at all, which confused the heck out of me.
The intentions are to place the Arch kernel on hda5 and hda6 will be /home for Arch.
Based on the replies, if I make hda5=/ , hda6=/home and not install grub, I can reflect this on my current grub as:
title failsafe
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/hda1 failsafe acpi=on resume=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img
And this should work?
[hda3 is swap]

if you're going to reinstall arch on hda5, then I would add this to pclos menu.lst:

title  Arch Linux (Main)
root   (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda5 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

As long as you know you can boot into pclos to fix anything you need to, I would forget about all the failsafe entries and just make a standard entry. You can worry about the failsafe thing later. All the stuff about swap being on hda3 is just confusing the issue, and I don't know for sure whether that would even work. I do know for sure that if your / is on hda5 (i.e., sda5), then what I posted will work as long as everything else is okay (nothing weird causing a kernel panic, etc.)

when you say your "arch /home" directory, you mean the /home for your user, not the main / directory, right? the /home directory is irrelevant for the boot process, so where that is doesn't matter. all that matters is where your main (/) directory is, and your /boot directory.

slackhack · 2008-03-17 17:41:48

Misfit138 wrote:

If /boot is a separate partition, then it would simply be a filename preceded by a slash, being relative to GRUB's root, (/boot). Whether it would work without a slash is a good question. I'm not on a *nix box right now, so I can't verify this.

yes, that's what I was wondering.

Misfit138 · 2008-03-17 17:42:14

windtalker wrote:

I followed the beginners guide which didn't mention / at all, which confused the heck out of me.
The intentions are to place the Arch kernel on hda5 and hda6 will be /home for Arch.
Based on the replies, if I make hda5=/ , hda6=/home and not install grub, I can reflect this on my current grub as:
title failsafe
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/hda1 failsafe acpi=on resume=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img
And this should work?
[hda3 is swap]

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beg … ion_Scheme

/ is mentioned in the first sentence under 'Cfdisk'

Let's start by creating the primary partition that will contain the root, (/) filesystem.

windtalker · 2008-03-17 17:47:35

My bad, I use Gparted to do my partitioning with and also missed it mentioning / earlier.
At least now it makes sense.
Thx for that.

Misfit138 · 2008-03-17 17:58:07

slackhack wrote:

Misfit138 wrote:
If /boot is a separate partition, then it would simply be a filename preceded by a slash, being relative to GRUB's root, (/boot). Whether it would work without a slash is a good question. I'm not on a *nix box right now, so I can't verify this.
yes, that's what I was wondering.

Excellent question. I've never tried it this way, but it stands to reason that it should work.

windtalker · 2008-03-17 19:06:19

What I did was make hda5 a jfs partition and labeled it / .
Hda6 is also jfs and labeled /home.
I installed without grub, edited my menu.lst from my primary as I have it listed above and am able to boot to Arch after selecting it.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-03-17 15:57:44

Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#2 2008-03-17 17:05:44

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#3 2008-03-17 17:07:22

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#4 2008-03-17 17:16:08

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#5 2008-03-17 17:24:51

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#6 2008-03-17 17:38:29

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#7 2008-03-17 17:39:27

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#8 2008-03-17 17:41:48

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#9 2008-03-17 17:42:14

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#10 2008-03-17 17:47:35

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#11 2008-03-17 17:58:07

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

#12 2008-03-17 19:06:19

Re: Does anyone dual boot with PCLinuxOS<solved>

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