Arch Linux

ascamp

Member

Registered: 2014-06-14

Posts: 6

[SOLVED] Dual Boot with Another Linux

Hi,

I've been trying to find something about this but was unsuccessful. I have Linux Mint 17 installed. It's a GPT partition, where I have bios_grub partition, legacy_boot, swap, root, home and data partition. I'm wondering how to set the partition during Arch install correctly to be able to dual boot these two linux distros. Is it enough to create second root and home partition and use the two boot partitions together for both?

Thank you very much,

Last edited by ascamp (2014-10-20 19:52:05)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,804

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot with Another Linux

Yes. Exactly.

In fact, you even suggested a separate home partition.  That is a good plan as the user configurations may be different for the different distributions.

Edit:  Are you using a swap partition?  If so, you can share that -- but be careful if you are using swap for hibernate.

Last edited by ewaller (2014-10-18 22:14:59)

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ascamp

Member

Registered: 2014-06-14

Posts: 6

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot with Another Linux

Thank you, I would like to ensure if I'm understanding it right. The result of lsblk is:

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 465,8G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0    20M  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0   300M  0 part /boot
├─sda3   8:3    0     8G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda4   8:4    0    30G  0 part /
├─sda5   8:5    0    30G  0 part /home
└─sda6   8:6    0 337,5G  0 part /media/ales/data
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  

During the install I will create new root partition and new home partition. Then I will mount the new root and the new home partition (and swap). I will create a directory /mnt/boot and will mount the sda2 boot partition in it, and will leave the sda1 (bios_grub) partition untouched. Is it right?

Should I install grub again or it is enough to append the partition with it? Should I do something with the bios_grub partition (sda1)?

Thank you for reply, I'm worried to do it right.

teateawhy

Member

From: GER

Registered: 2012-03-05

Posts: 1,138

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot with Another Linux

You have to decide which OS has the control over GRUB, archlinux or mint. I don't know how mint's GRUB installation works, so i can't say which is better.
If you want to have archlinux manage GRUB then reinstall grub from archlinux and remove the grub package in mint. This means you need to restore the boot entry for mint, too.
To let mint manage GRUB you don't need to install a bootloader from archlinux, adding an entry for archlinux in the existing GRUB is sufficient.

Mr. SegFault

Member

Registered: 2014-10-18

Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot with Another Linux

Maybe you chose a separate /home partition for a different reason, but if it's just for the configuration files, why not share the partition and create different home directories?
On my laptop I dualboot Arch and Mint as well, sharing the /home and swap partitions, and using separate root partitions of course.
On my home partition, the directory layout looks like this:

/home/
- mint/
  - user/
- arch/
  - user/

I symlinked the user data directories (Documents, Images, Music, Videos, Downloads and Desktop) so I share my files as well. And this way there are no worries about disk space allocation, configuration files and separate user data.

Last edited by Mr. SegFault (2014-10-21 17:52:36)