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#1 2009-01-21 17:31:20

jclark93
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Registered: 2009-01-21
Posts: 7

Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

I have a laptop and I would like to install about 5 Linux distros along with Windows XP.

I am having a devil time of installing Linux distro because those distro install makes up it's own mind about partitions.

I have 160 GB hard disk and I had resized the Windows XP partition down to 20 GB.  So that leaves about 140 GB for all other Linux distros.  About 20 GB each or so.

When I install Ubuntu 8.10, it decided to shrink the existing Windows XP partition down to 10 GB (or so) and allocate 10 GB for itself.  That is not what I want so I quit.

Then I create new partition, a 20 GB Ext3 partition.  Then ran Ubuntu installer and this time, it creates something like 285 mb partition (right after the Windows XP partition) then use the entire remaining disk space (i.e. 138-139 GB) for the / partition then some left (1 GB or so) for Linux swap.  Then it install grub.

I did have boot manager (Acronis OS Selector) installed so I guess Ubuntu install grub in that 256 mb partition that is between XP and Ubuntu's / root partitions.

I believe if I go ahead resize the Ubuntu's / partition, then I will have to edit grub (I am new with grub and will have to learn unless you have better ideas...)

Am I right that when I have to resize the Linux partition, then I have to boot to CD in order to edit the boot data using grub so it will boot correctly to the resized partition?

Does anyone have better ideas on easy way to install several Linux distros on single hard disk along with Windows XP?

One way I was thinking is install each Linux distro on external USB hard disk, then manually copy the partition from external USB hard disk to another partition on the internal hard disk and obviously I have to re-edit the boot data using grub.

In that case, I would have a MBR, XP partition, Linux 1 ext3, Linux 2 ext3, Linux 3 ext3, Linux 4 ext3.... then finally a single Linux swap on an internal hard disk.

I was wondering if I can use OSL2000 (osloader.com ) instead of grub?  It seems that OSL2000 has ability to list the bootable partitions on fly which would be neat in my case (it is true that it would not give me the option to boot to single user et al, could it?)

Many thanks in advance! Jamie

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#2 2009-01-21 17:39:52

toad
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Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

Get yourself a gparted liveCD or some such, do your desired partitioning and select manual or expert partitioning during the install process of such "out of the bos" distros like the Buntus or Suse...


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#3 2009-01-21 17:47:49

u_no_hu
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Registered: 2008-06-15
Posts: 453

Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

1. Dont use automatic partitioning ...
2. A common home may be good idea. And common swap if you dont plan to hibernate ..
3. Do all the partitioning the first time.
4. Install the  final grub to MBR.

That worked pretty well for me...I had something like 3 linux + 1 windows + 1openbsd at one time, everything coexisting peacefully on a 160GB drive smile


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#4 2009-01-21 17:53:16

jclark93
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Registered: 2009-01-21
Posts: 7

Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

I just looked at gparted liveCD.  So the idea is that I can set up say 5 root linux partitions and a swap via gparted.  Then I boot and install those distros one a time.  Is that correct?

I did not see "manual/expert partitioning" option in Buntus, maybe I missed that option?

Thanks!

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#5 2009-01-21 17:53:53

lilsirecho
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Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

I suggest that you can provide any number of OS systems by using "live" USB flash devices.

For instance, Faunos which is archlinux based of 1GB and it runs in ram.  There is no impact on the HDD, but HDD data is accessible.

Many other OS "live" usb flash devices are extant.

Try a bunch!


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#6 2009-01-21 17:56:04

jclark93
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Registered: 2009-01-21
Posts: 7

Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

Shoud the Linux partitions being primary or it can be logical?  Am I right that hard disk is limited to 4 primary partitions?

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#7 2009-01-21 17:57:35

toad
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Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

u_no_hu wrote:

2. A common home may be good idea. And common swap if you dont plan to hibernate ..

A common home IS nice but can be bothersome if you mix different versions of DEs such as KDE3 and KDE4.

And more of a question rather than a comment: why not hibernate on a single swap? I've been doing it for years yikes

Grub could also have its own partition so menu.lst can be managed centrally.


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#8 2009-01-21 18:02:32

jclark93
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Registered: 2009-01-21
Posts: 7

Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

Yeah live OS on flash is a good option.   Hmm...  To do this or not to do this... smile

However I would love to learn to have multiple distros on a hard disk method....  I might as well do both smile

I knew I would settle down on Arch Linux for good, but nice to have other distros to get my feet wet.  It has been a long time since Slackware came out with 30 or so floppy disks. (talking about real good old days back in 1993-94...)

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#9 2009-01-21 18:04:36

u_no_hu
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Registered: 2008-06-15
Posts: 453

Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

toad wrote:
u_no_hu wrote:

2. A common home may be good idea. And common swap if you dont plan to hibernate ..

A common home IS nice but can be bothersome if you mix different versions of DEs such as KDE3 and KDE4.

I used to use different login name for each os .. so no problems there

toad wrote:

And more of a question rather than a comment: why not hibernate on a single swap? I've been doing it for years yikes

Can you hibernate multiple os at the same time?? smile


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#10 2009-01-21 18:06:21

jclark93
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Registered: 2009-01-21
Posts: 7

Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

Toad, I know Grub can be installed in MBR, so do menu.lst?  Or is menu.lst normally in root partition of each distro?

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#11 2009-01-21 18:10:32

u_no_hu
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Registered: 2008-06-15
Posts: 453

Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

@jclark93
If you are not comfortable with grub, partitoning etc its always better to try a single dual boot first because you are bound to make a mistake and mess it up ......i know because i made a lot of them and had to learn the hard way smile


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#12 2009-01-21 18:17:05

jclark93
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Registered: 2009-01-21
Posts: 7

Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

Yeah Grub docs is like a greek to me, kinda scary smile  I knew I can learn Grub, just take time and some playing time..

I was looking for short cuts, OSL2000 seems like a good shortcut as it seems to able to find bootable Linux partitions on fly automatically via MBR.  I know it cost money $29) but would save me lot of time not having to learn Grub which could take hours and hours.

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#13 2009-01-21 19:34:44

Xiong Chiamiov
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From: central coast, california
Registered: 2008-06-18
Posts: 142
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Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

jclark93 wrote:

Shoud the Linux partitions being primary or it can be logical?  Am I right that hard disk is limited to 4 primary partitions?

You are correct.  If I remember right, Windows, OS X and BSD all need primary partitions, so I'd recommend putting all of your Linux installations in one extended partition.

Personally, I have Arch as kind of my default.  When I install a new distro, I have it install grub to its partition, rather than the mbr, and then I chain-load into it from my Arch grub, just like with Windows.  That way, when they get kernel updates, they can change their grub boot parameters directly.

You might want to take a look at persistent device naming.  It's handy when you're creating and removing partitions a lot.

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#14 2009-01-21 23:34:13

toad
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Registered: 2008-12-22
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Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

@ u_no_hu

I used to use different login name for each os

You know, I only "discovered" that two weeks ago tongue And still didn't apply to this! Having said that, what is the point of separate home if you do have different logins? I know, some you share, some you don't . Thanks for pointing it out though smile

Can you hibernate multiple os at the same time?? smile

Is it possible to suspend to ram more than one OS? Prolly is, but that requires some addressing that is a tad too much for me! Suspend to disk though is fine 'cos you can tell the OS to dump RAM contents wherever you please. So it depends on your needs I suppose.

As stated, I've always had one swap only which was sufficient for my needs... Good point though, hadn't thought about it like that before smile

@ jclark93

menu.lst is located in /boot/grub of the host OS. Basically, the last install wins smile If you decide to go that way you want to make sure that before you install a new OS you have a backup copy of your working menu.lst! Also make sure you understand grub nomenclature (actually quite easy, it is incremental). If unsure, just ask smile


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#15 2009-01-22 06:36:45

jclark93
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Registered: 2009-01-21
Posts: 7

Re: Ideas for several installations of various Linux distros

Thanks for your help, it is much easier than I thought smile

I use gparted live CD to partition, then chainloader from grub in MBR to Arch's own one.  Piece of cake smile  Now building my Arch!

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