Posted: 6/4/2010 4:31:42 PM EDT
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I have a spare laptop HD. I'm going to use it to drive some of the newer Linux Distos around the block. If I create three 8-10gb partitions and start installing Linux operating systems on them, will the GRUB loader automatically add them to the system and allow me to choose between them? I'm going to try Ubuntu 10.04x64, Mint 9x64 OpenSUSE and maybe some other versions. Thanks ZM |
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It will be each distro's installer that will determine how the partitions are used - not grub.
You might want to use a Virtual Machine application like VMWare or Virtual Box (free) or something similar to play with different distros instead of having a bunch of partitions - much easier to manage. |
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I have Virtual Box. I've used it to play with several distros. I want to find out which distro will recognize my Verizon USB modem. Can't do that in Virtual Box. It's more fun to play with Linux in a regular install. If I hose up the drive I can put in my other HD and keep going. |
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What you will likely end up having to do is install each distro on separate partitions. Then you will have to manually edit GRUBs conf to include entries for each of the kernels/distros you have installed. Just make sure not to overwrite your other partitions, and use GRUB for each of the distros bootloaders. |
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Quoted: I have Virtual Box. I've used it to play with several distros. I want to find out which distro will recognize my Verizon USB modem. Can't do that in Virtual Box. It's more fun to play with Linux in a regular install. If I hose up the drive I can put in my other HD and keep going. If you've tried virtualbox via a repository then USB probably won't work. However, if you download it from the virtualbox website it should include a USB-passthrough so you can try out your modem (maybe). |
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Quoted:
I have Virtual Box. I've used it to play with several distros. I want to find out which distro will recognize my Verizon USB modem. Can't do that in Virtual Box. It's more fun to play with Linux in a regular install. If I hose up the drive I can put in my other HD and keep going. Your modem should work just fine in virtualbox. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
I have Virtual Box. I've used it to play with several distros. I want to find out which distro will recognize my Verizon USB modem. Can't do that in Virtual Box. It's more fun to play with Linux in a regular install. If I hose up the drive I can put in my other HD and keep going. Your modem should work just fine in virtualbox. ONLY if you're using the PUEL version as RHCP alluded to. USB is not supported with the OSE version of VirtualBox. |
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30 gig hardrive?
/dev/sda1 : Suse /dev/sda2 : Mint /dev/sda3 : Ubuntu /dev/sha5 : SWAP 3ea 9.5 gig partitions, 1ea 1.5gig shared swap space between the three Linux installs I would install in this order: Suse, Mint, Ubuntu, for no particular reason other then Ubuntu/Debian seems to work well when identifying other installed OS's. ETA: When you say "spare" drive, are you going to remove your existing drive and put this spare in it's place, or use some type of USB external type enclosure? Or can you put both drives in at once? Depending on your laptop, you should be able to choose the boot order for multiple drives or external drives. ETA Again: Like others said, if you can use that drive as an external, then Virtual Box, or VMWare Player might be a good choice just to get the feel for the distros, but it won't let you test whether they will work with your laptop in a native install. The new VMWare Player lets users install operating systems just like Vbox, without the headache of what you used to have to do messing with .vmx and .vmdk files. Also includes the VMWareTools so you can get the better graphics and stuff. |
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Quoted:
30 gig hardrive? /dev/sda1 : Suse /dev/sda2 : Mint /dev/sda3 : Ubuntu /dev/sha5 : SWAP 3ea 9.5 gig partitions, 1ea 1.5gig shared swap space between the three Linux installs I would install in this order: Suse, Mint, Ubuntu, for no particular reason other then Ubuntu/Debian seems to work well when identifying other installed OS's. ETA: When you say "spare" drive, are you going to remove your existing drive and put this spare in it's place, or use some type of USB external type enclosure? Or can you put both drives in at once? Depending on your laptop, you should be able to choose the boot order for multiple drives or external drives. ETA Again: Like others said, if you can use that drive as an external, then Virtual Box, or VMWare Player might be a good choice just to get the feel for the distros, but it won't let you test whether they will work with your laptop in a native install. The new VMWare Player lets users install operating systems just like Vbox, without the headache of what you used to have to do messing with .vmx and .vmdk files. Also includes the VMWareTools so you can get the better graphics and stuff. I have two HD for my laptop. I remove the important HD with Windoze 7 and install the spare drive. Am I to infer from your instructions that I need to manually edit/configure the partitions? My recent attempts have been less than successful. It looks like I have some research to do. My USB enclosure failed a month ago. I ran PCLINUX OS 09v1 on the spare drive for a long time primarily to use GParted in emergencies. PCLinux is great for old computers, netbooks and pen drives, but it doesn't have the horsepower for newer computers. I've played around with Virtual Box. It's OK but it doesn't give me a feel of how an OS works. I have too much time on my hands. I fool around with my own computers (three). I also repair, fix and generally help people in my world keep their computers running and away from the Geek Squad. I became a very popular guy at my Mother's retirement home, removing viruses, spyware, malware, freshening old computers and weening the old timers off AOL and Internet Exploder. I don't take money from them, but I have a fistful of Starbucks cards and more cookies than I know what to do with. 
I'm laid off again. The owner of my company is skimming off the top and the authorities have shut the place down. I have plenty of free time. 
Thanks ZM |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
30 gig hardrive? /dev/sda1 : Suse /dev/sda2 : Mint /dev/sda3 : Ubuntu /dev/sha5 : SWAP 3ea 9.5 gig partitions, 1ea 1.5gig shared swap space between the three Linux installs I would install in this order: Suse, Mint, Ubuntu, for no particular reason other then Ubuntu/Debian seems to work well when identifying other installed OS's. ETA: When you say "spare" drive, are you going to remove your existing drive and put this spare in it's place, or use some type of USB external type enclosure? Or can you put both drives in at once? Depending on your laptop, you should be able to choose the boot order for multiple drives or external drives. ETA Again: Like others said, if you can use that drive as an external, then Virtual Box, or VMWare Player might be a good choice just to get the feel for the distros, but it won't let you test whether they will work with your laptop in a native install. The new VMWare Player lets users install operating systems just like Vbox, without the headache of what you used to have to do messing with .vmx and .vmdk files. Also includes the VMWareTools so you can get the better graphics and stuff. I have two HD for my laptop. I remove the important HD with Windoze 7 and install the spare drive. Am I to infer from your instructions that I need to manually edit/configure the partitions? My recent attempts have been less than successful. It looks like I have some research to do. ZM When you go to install one of those distros, it will go through the drive partitioning setup. Just choose the "Specify partitions manually" option and create the three partitions at one time; first one starts at "beginning of free space", choose size and type of file system (ext3 is always a good reliable file system type), and if you have to type in the size, it is usually something like 9500MiB = 9.5 gig. Make all three the same size and type, then add a SWAP that is equal or slightly larger then the total amount of ram you have installed. You really never need to go over 1gig of swap for a desktop system. As you are making your partitions, it might have check-boxes or some other selection mark to tell the system to use that partition. Since you will be installing 3 different distros you only need to use one partition and the swap space for each one. So tell it you want to format all three, but only assign a mount point "/" to one of the partitions to use as your root file system, don't select, or deselect, any other mount points if the installer automatically chooses. When you go through installing the second distro, select the manual partition setup again, and select the second partition "/dev/sda2", and tell the installer you want to use this as "/", and pick the swap area "/dev/sda5" for use as swap space. Don't use or mount the other two partitions "sda1 and sda3" Third distro select "sda3" as your "/", and same thing...don't use "sda1 or sda2". You can use the same swap space "/dev/sda5" though. As you go through installing the distros, select install grub to master boot record. When installing the second one, it should detect that Suse is already installed and modify grub accordingly. And when installing the third distro, Ubuntu should detect that Suse and Mint are installed and also modify grub to the master boot record accordingly to let all three distros to be chosen during the computer boot sequence. Good thing is if you mess up, it's a spare drive and nothing should be too important too loose if something goes wrong. It's not that hard once you understand what is going on and have done it a few times. Hopefully I haven't confused the hell out of you. I once had 4 distros; Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu, and LFS installed on one drive. I have since moved to Debian based distros exclusively; pure Debian for my servers, and Ubuntu for my laptops/desktops. |
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Yes, you have made ordinary computer confusion morph into chaos.
I'm cutting and pasting your post into Word so I can have it handy when I try this out. I'll reserve future questions until that time. I'll be installing SUSE, Mint 9x64, Ubuntu 10.04x64 or Kubuntu, and Mandriva. Definitely Mandriva. I like it a lot. This could change however based on new information or the amount of caffeine I've ingested. Thanks for your help Hanzerik ZM |