Suggestion about triple/dual boot

Joxy · 2008-02-29 01:24:40

When I found Arch I quit distro hopping, but now after a few months of using Arch I realized that I miss that distro testing. I want to use Arch as my primary OS, but also want to install and test other distros just for fun. Until now everything was XP/Linux dual boot, but now I want to try Linux/Linux boot or triple boot because I still have 10 GB XP partition, by the way don't remember last time I logged into it, so I don't mind erasing XP. What should I do. This is my HD configuration

sda1 10GB ntfs primary
sda2 /boot 100 MB ext2 primary
sda5 1GB swap logical
sda6 / 20 GB ext3 logical
sda7 /home 120GB ext3 logical

Should I resize sda7 and use that as my test partition or delete XP and use sda1, what is better option? My biggest worry is GRUB, I don't want anything wrong to happen. I have tons of question but it's enough for now .

Allan · 2008-02-29 01:31:50

Do you want windows or not.... This is a decision you really need to make yourself. My only advise is to make sure you back everything important up before playing with partitions.

Joxy · 2008-02-29 01:37:15

I don't want XP anymore, I've made my mind but I'm wondering what is better option to resize sda7 or use sda1, because I don't want to mess my Arch if something goes wrong with partitioning. Don't want to reinstall Arch because it needs me 15 hours on 128kbit/s .

Last edited by Joxy (2008-02-29 01:43:26)

laumars · 2008-02-29 02:33:16

Joxy wrote:

I don't want XP anymore, I've made my mind but I'm wondering what is better option to resize sda7 or use sda1, because I don't want to mess my Arch if something goes wrong with partitioning. Don't want to reinstall Arch because it needs me 15 hours on 128kbit/s .

10gigs should be enough to road test linux distros. you've obviously have to chop that up for a swap and ext3 partitions but you should beable to do this without touching Arch's partitions.

eerok · 2008-02-29 02:49:58

Actually ... use the swap you already have. You can share that among distros, and the /boot as well if you want. 10GB is enough to test distros with.

B-Con · 2008-02-29 03:07:09

Don't worry about Grub, it won't be harmed. No Linux OS should install something to your bootsector without asking first (because that's just rude).

Me, I'd resize sda7 since it isn't too hard to do so, and XP is kind of handy to keep around, especially since the install+activation+updating takes so long, in case you ever want it back.

tesjo · 2008-02-29 04:37:14

Just another option for checking out other distros, you could try a virtual solution like virtualbox. There are a lot of reasons you might not want to do this but just thought I would bring it up.

jbromley · 2008-02-29 07:05:07

tesjo wrote:

Just another option for checking out other distros, you could try a virtual solution like virtualbox. There are a lot of reasons you might not want to do this but just thought I would bring it up.

I just thought I'd give you the main reason why testing Linux distros in a VM doesn't work for me and you can decide how much this applies to you.

The downside of using a VM for testing Linux distros is the virtual part. You don't get to test on your hardware, you test on some virtualized, simple and generally well-supported hardware. I.e. no access to hardware rendering, no access to fancy sound card features, etc. There are also issues with system features like ACPI.

When I test a distro, I usually want to see that everything - video, sound, input devices, network, wireless, ACPI, etc. work. I'm not too interested in the software per se, since you can make any distro look like whatever you want and have whatever software you like. Of course, if you are using a virtual machine, you won't be able to properly evaluate these hardware-related features.

For a while, when I went looking for a distro, I would try it out in a VM and then, if I liked it, install it on my hard drive. When I realized the VM didn't let me test things like power management and wireless connectivity, it became clear that a VM won't really let you "kick the tires" of a new distro.

Anyway, in your case I recommend repartitioning sda7, since you never know when you might need Windows and it is a pain in the ass to reinstall should you remove it.

Regards,
j

Joxy · 2008-02-29 07:42:28

Thanks for suggestions. I will resize sda7 and use existing swap. What to do with GRUB, install it with testing distro or manually edit later?

bgc1954 · 2008-02-29 18:01:08

Hi there,

I run Arch as my main distro and have windows XP--not used much-- and 9 other linux distros that I like to play around with. Unfortunately, there are some distros, especially ones that you install off a live cd that don't ask about grub and install it to the mbr without prompting--I agree it's quite rude not to ask. That being said, I always boot back into Arch and do a grub-install /dev/sda and replace the /boot/grub/menu.lst with one I keep backed up. It's also not a bad idea to install grub on a floppy just in case everything goes haywire--I've had that happen too many times to count too. Some distros don't play nice and make all your decisions for you as they are trying to keep it simple to be more windows like maybe??

SiC · 2008-02-29 18:47:51

Joxy wrote:

Thanks for suggestions. I will resize sda7 and use existing swap. What to do with GRUB, install it with testing distro or manually edit later?

I'd manually edit later.

Joxy · 2008-03-01 12:09:00

I installed third OS successfully, edit GRUB manually and everything works perfect. Thanks for help.

Joxy

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-29 01:24:40

Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#2 2008-02-29 01:31:50

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#3 2008-02-29 01:37:15

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#4 2008-02-29 02:33:16

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#5 2008-02-29 02:49:58

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#6 2008-02-29 03:07:09

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#7 2008-02-29 04:37:14

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#8 2008-02-29 07:05:07

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#9 2008-02-29 07:42:28

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#10 2008-02-29 18:01:08

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#11 2008-02-29 18:47:51

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

#12 2008-03-01 12:09:00

Re: Suggestion about triple/dual boot

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