Arch Linux

davidwillis

Member

Registered: 2006-09-19

Posts: 51

dual boot arch/gentoo

I have been trying to dual boot these two, but I keep messing it up.  I am starting over right now.  I just installed gentoo with hda1= /boot, hda2 = swap, hda3 = /.  Now I am going to install arch on had4. 

Do I just not install grub, and add arch to the menu.lst?  Or is there more to it than that?

Sorry, I have gone through this twice now, and keep messing up the other install (erasing partitions and such)  Now I want to make sure I get it right this time.

Thanks

firedance

Member

From: Stockholm, Sweden

Registered: 2005-04-18

Posts: 131

Re: dual boot arch/gentoo

What i would have done is install arch without any bootloader (grub) and then just add it to menu.lst

toxic

Member

Registered: 2006-06-05

Posts: 117

Re: dual boot arch/gentoo

I don't know about the Gentoo installer, but I assume it contains a disk partitioning utility. Just make sure that you don't select something like 'auto'. Just like you can during arch install choose which partition you want root to be, a similar function has  to occur during Gentoo install; otherwise you can just choose to install Arch afterwards.
So what firedance said, install Gentoo like normal, then start the Arch installer and make sure that Grub isn't installed. So once the installation is finished, log on to your Gentoo distribution and add an entry in menu.lst  for arch. Just make sure that you select ie (hda3,0) and (hda2,) as root for your different installs.

SiD

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2006-09-21

Posts: 729

Re: dual boot arch/gentoo

Hi,

I have Gentoo, Arch and WindowsXP on my machine.

hda1 windows
hda2 Extended with:
hda5 Linux swap
hda6 Gentoo
hda7 Arch
hda8 Linux data (I use it for mp3 ect.)

I booted the Gentoo-minimal-install-CD, created the partitions and then insalled first windows, second Gentoo and last Arch.

install Gentoo like normal, then start the Arch installer and make sure that Grub isn't installed. So once the installation is finished, log on to your Gentoo distribution and add an entry in menu.lst for arch

I did it excactly this way...

this is the grub.conf from my Gentoo-Installation

default 0

timeout 5

title Gentoo Linux (2.6.17-gentoo-r8)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.17-gentoo-r8 root=/dev/hda6 pci=assign-busses 

title Arch Linux 
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/hda7 vga=773
initrd /boot/initrd26.img

title M$ Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

davidwillis

Member

Registered: 2006-09-19

Posts: 51

Re: dual boot arch/gentoo

Thanks guys,  I finally got it going.  I did have some problems.  I started all over, and put gentoo on.  Then I put on arch, but I went through the boot loader just to see what the grub menu.lst would look like.  Then I canceled before I wrote it.  But it deleted my /boot partition anyway.  So I had to write the arch boot loader to the /boot partition, get arch up and running.  Then chroot into gentoo, and re compile and install my kernel (it was on /boot), and copy it over to boot.  Then I just edited my menu.lst.  Now it works.

I also put frugalware, and yoper on by installing them without the bootloader (I learned my lesson).  I am trying out a bunch of them to see what I like the most.   Gentoo would be my pick if it weren't so hard to learn, and takes so much work to set up things.  Arch looks like it may win, because once I get it set up it will be much easier to keep up dated.

Anyway, thanks for all the comments, and help.