dual boot (linux / linux)

collinm · 2007-01-26 04:26:32

hi

i have an amd X2 4200+

i have suse 10.2 64 bits on my system

i have a /boot partition and it left 10 gig of free space.

i would like to install arch linux on the free space

how to do it without breaking my existing installation

thanks

stingray · 2007-01-26 05:02:40

collinm wrote:

hi
i have a /boot partition and it left 10 gig of free space.

Is that 10 gigs of free spance on your /boot partition?
If so then then I could think of a few options. (assuming you have just 3 partitions, boot, swap and "/")

1. Use a gparted live CD or something like it ( to shrink your /boot partition (500mb or less), move your other partitions over to leave 9.5 gigs of free space at the end of your drive. Then you could make a new partition with the 9.5 gigs. Then when you install, mount your current swap, then the new partition as root. Installing grub to the /dev/sda4 not, /dev/sda. No arch won't boot (unless your BIOS let's you boot off the different partitions from a boot menu) But you can add your new grub/lilo entries to your suse grub/lilo and then boot into ArchLinux.

Careful using gparted, anytime you do stuff like that you run the chance of messing everything up. Backup your important stuff. I've used it extensively at a school computer lab, and have never had any problems moving/resizing, linux partitions. I have had it mess up some windows stuff before... :?

2. Copy your boot off the 10gigs to your root "/boot" update the /boot/grub/menu.lst to work right, or lilo if you use it. Install grub/lilo to the use the correct partition. Make sure it still all works, then install linux to the 10gig partition.

3. Don't worry about trying to use the 10gigs, but shrink your last partition to give you enough space to install, try it out, love it, reinstall using all your drive.

Note: I just happen to be doing all kinds of this stuff rebuilding a school computer lab that windows, Linux. It's also shared between students and teachers, so we have have them booting about 7 systems. Lot's of fun.

collinm · 2007-01-26 12:46:04

the 10 gig free, it's directly on another partition

/boot
/
/home
/Divers (10gigs free)

stingray · 2007-01-26 13:58:45

collinm wrote:

the 10 gig free, it's directly on another partition

/boot
/
/home
/Divers (10gigs free)

/Drivers ? It looks like it is being used, are there any files on it?

Do you have a swap partition also?

Could you post your fstab file from your suse install, it might help see what you have.

You could also type "fdisk /dev/sda -l" or "fdisk /dev/hda -l" to list your partition table.

distortedstar · 2007-01-26 17:49:04

I've got a similar setup. fdisk /dev/hda -l outputs:

Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3648 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 3555 28555506 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 3556 3648 747022+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 3556 3648 746991 82 Linux swap / Solaris

I'm currently running Ubuntu, but I'm look for something a little faster, more customizable, and also something that will force me to work with the command line more, without requiring me to compile every-freaking-thing. Arch seems to fit the bill nicely, and I've only heard great things about this distro.

I'm planning on dual booting for a while, till I'm real comfortable in arch, and then I'll probably make the Ubuntu partition a multi-media storage partition or something.

In any event, if I understand correctly, I should:

1)Make a new partition for Arch.
2)Run the installer, mounting my Arch partition and my existing swap partition.
3)Install Arch AND grub to the Arch partition
4)Manually edit my existing grub installation to boot from the Arch partition.

Does this sound correct?

stingray · 2007-01-26 20:16:45

distortedstar wrote:

In any event, if I understand correctly, I should:
1)Make a new partition for Arch.
2)Run the installer, mounting my Arch partition and my existing swap partition.
3)Install Arch AND grub to the Arch partition
4)Manually edit my existing grub installation to boot from the Arch partition.
Does this sound correct?

Looks good to me. In reality, you don't need to install grub on the Arch partition, once you edit your existing grub install it should work. I like installing it to the Arch partition, because it gives me another boot option if something were to go wrong with my main bool loader... (The main point is to NOT install it to the master boot record, which is where your existing grub is...)

distortedstar · 2007-01-26 20:44:19

Awesome. Thanks for the quick reply. Hopefully I'll be able to get installed with minimal headaches sometime in the next few weeks. I appreciate the help!

collinm · 2007-01-26 22:36:25

stingray wrote:

collinm wrote:
the 10 gig free, it's directly on another partition

/boot
/
/home
/Divers (10gigs free)
/Drivers ? It looks like it is being used, are there any files on it?
Do you have a swap partition also?
Could you post your fstab file from your suse install, it might help see what you have.
You could also type "fdisk /dev/sda -l" or "fdisk /dev/hda -l" to list your partition table.

not driver, but divers.....i create it to installer another linux distribution....

fstab

/dev/sda5            /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/sda1            /boot                ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/sda9            /divers              ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/sda6            /var                 ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/sda7            swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0
/dev/fd0             /media/floppy        auto       noauto,user,sync      0 0

fdisk...

/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14        9729    78043770    f  W95 Etendu (LBA)
/dev/sda5              14        3408    27270306   83  Linux
/dev/sda6            3409        3604     1574338+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7            3605        3735     1052226   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8            3736        8957    41945683+  83  Linux
/dev/sda9            8958        9729     6201058+  83  Linux

stingray · 2007-01-27 02:39:36

collinm wrote:

not driver, but divers.....i create it to installer another linux distribution....

Ohh, yep, missed that...

Looks great to me, run the install, and when you get to the "Prepare your hard disk" part, just mount the your swap to /dev/sda7, then mount "/" to "/dev/sda9". When you get ready to install grub, do NOT install to "/dev/sda", you can install it to /dev/sda9 it you want. Update your grub menu.lst on your suse install. You should be able to see how it should be by looking at "/Divers/boot/grub/menu.lst". I'm not sure how lilo works if you use that...

Good luck!

collinm · 2007-01-27 03:52:18

i will have two time grub?
one for suse and another for arch?

stingray · 2007-01-27 04:20:44

No, you will just use the grub from suse to boot both. If your computer lets you boot from different partitions (sometime "F8") during bootup, then you can use different grub's.

collinm · 2007-01-27 05:35:17

if i understand, i install arch on my empty partition

put the boot loader on /dev/sda9

and i add something like

title Arch
  chainloader (hd0,8)+1

will surely wait to arch 0.8 to have the newest kernel and xorg...

i hope arch will use xorg 7.2

stingray · 2007-01-27 19:01:06

No, it would be like this:

title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,8)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda9 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

happy-and-lost · 2007-02-20 19:23:04

stingray wrote:

No, it would be like this:

title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,8)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda9 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

*buntu graduate here. With a menu entry to that effect on my grub (tri booting, default menu.lst on ubuntu's /boot) it gives me Error 23 (parsing numbers?).

Any other suggestions?

Last edited by happy-and-lost (2007-02-20 19:23:24)

Acid7711 · 2007-02-20 21:00:50

The way I did it when I was dual booting multiple linux distros was having a single boot partition and having both kernels on that. Then used Grub to select that kernel and passed the root= option to the partion of whatever distro's root directory that I was looking to load.

Don't know if it was the correct or proper way, but it worked well for me.

barbalander · 2007-02-28 08:57:06

I have installed arch linux on my laptop.

HD1: 30 GB WINXP, 12 GB UBUNTULINUX, 512 SWAP for ubuntu, 10 GB ARCHLINUX and 256 SWAP for arch.

These partitions for arch are logical(or the other option? i had three partitions berfore then added two more for arch). I used the program that comes with the arch installation cd. But i cant start it with grub. I've added this to grub config file:

root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/xmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda5 ro
quiet
boot

I dont really understand what root (hd0,0) stands for. Maybe ive done wrong? Anyway then i try to start archlinux grub says: Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition.

Anyone got some suggestions?

Last edited by barbalander (2007-02-28 09:21:40)

collinm · 2007-04-03 21:59:13

/dev/sda1 -> /boot
/dev/sda5 -> /
/dev/sda6 -> /var
/dev/sda7 -> swap
/dev/sda8 -> /home
/dev/sda9 -> used for arch linux (all the file system need it by its is there.... boot, home...)

grub menu

#suse
title Kernel-2.6.18.8-0.1-default
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18.8-0.1-default root=/dev/sda5 vga=0x346 resume=/dev/sda7 splash=silent showopts
    initrd /initrd-2.6.18.8-0.1-default


title Arch Linux
    root(hd0,8)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda9 vga=792 ro
    initrd /boot/kernel26.img

in /dev/sda9 partition, folder boot i have
kconfig26 kernel26-fallback.img kernel26.img System.map26 vmlinuz26

when i try to boot i get:

error 15: file not found

any idea?

collinm · 2007-04-04 22:19:53

that ok, a space was missing

diogenes · 2007-04-19 21:23:24

Ive always had the best luck loading the new grub to the MBR and editing that to include the old distro as well, i see that method is not recommended, though i've always found it to work quite well...just curious why its discouraged?

Arch Linux

#1 2007-01-26 04:26:32

dual boot (linux / linux)

#2 2007-01-26 05:02:40

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#3 2007-01-26 12:46:04

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#4 2007-01-26 13:58:45

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#5 2007-01-26 17:49:04

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#6 2007-01-26 20:16:45

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#7 2007-01-26 20:44:19

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#8 2007-01-26 22:36:25

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#9 2007-01-27 02:39:36

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#10 2007-01-27 03:52:18

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#11 2007-01-27 04:20:44

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#12 2007-01-27 05:35:17

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#13 2007-01-27 19:01:06

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#14 2007-02-20 19:23:04

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#15 2007-02-20 21:00:50

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#16 2007-02-28 08:57:06

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#17 2007-04-03 21:59:13

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#18 2007-04-04 22:19:53

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

#19 2007-04-19 21:23:24

Re: dual boot (linux / linux)

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