Fedora :: How To Multiboot Distros From LVM And/or Non-LVM Partitions
Dec 6, 2010
My drive was set as LVM during installation of FC3 and has worked fine, but now i need to upgrade to some newer distro and would like to "try before i buy" one, without losing my current data and functionality (email and browsing). Once i find something that i like, then i would want to use the new distro and still have access to my old data files.
My thoughts were that i needed to somehow create a non-LVM partition in which to download and install the newer distros, but that is scary at the thought of making a mistake and losing everything. And from the success story it appears that is possibly not necessary since he uses only LVM. i tried using WINE a while back and something in the windows program started reformatting/deleting my linux account in /home and i lost everything, so i'm not thinking highly of virtualizations, and i've reverted to "if it ain't broke don't fix it"...
But now all the multimedia requires newer flash, and new flash requires new browser, and new browser wants new kernel, etc... so the time has come to try the new stuff, even though the old stuff works fine. i have a /boot ext2, and the rest is / LVM. i would like to try ubuntu or debian, knoppix, FC?. Most of the info i've found for multiboot has been anti-LVM, so it has not been useful and i'm overwhelmed by all the information. Could someone who used LVM and loaded other distros give me some detailed pointers on how it works and maybe some successful example scripts or partition tables, etc.?
I want to multiboot several Distros for experimental purposes. My main distro is Ubuntu 10.04.Hard drive is partitioned like such: /dev/sda1, grup bios, size = 977 Kib/dev/sda2, file system ext4, size 1.8 Tib, this is mounted on / /dev/sda3 linux swap, 4.3Gib.My question is can I use Gparted to partition a second space out of sda2, and install another Distro? Do I mount it on / ? and will grub boot see both OS without destroying the kernel of my old distro? I am assuming to partition my hard drive I have to unmount it, but can I do this without using a live cd? So many questions and so little help, because apparently this is an easy thing to do.I am just worried just seems that what I just described is too easy and I will probably destroy everything and have to start over.
Im trying to install a multiboot with multi distros, in this case Slackware and Linux Oracle. I have Slackware running for a while now and try to install it in other partition. Suppose I have Slackware in /dev/hdb and planning to install Oracle Linux in /dev/sda. My plan is:
1.Format /dev/sda 2.Install Oracle Linux in /dev/sda using boot disk 3.Modify lilo.conf 4.Run dual boot
But the problem is during the Oracle Linux boot installation: 1.It doesnt recognize the partition and file format that Slackware did in /dev/sda 2.The installation disk then force me to create another partition for memory swap and root directory 3.At first attempt I created a partition in /dev/sda with RAID format which didnt get recognized by Slackware so that I had it wiped out at the next attempt of installation.4.Just before the process of partitioning /dev/sda, Oracle Linux installer from the boot disk cannot detect my dvd drive although the PC was booted from its very drive (Why?) so It was asking me if I need to point out the location of another copy of the image file, which is located in /dev/sda1. The installer read it from /dev/sda1, I think not from DVD drive. This always happens in all attempts.5.At the end, it cannot finish the process of the installation and I have to abort it, without knowing the reason for it. This happens in all attempts also.
i am trying at the moment to setup up a multiboot system on my laptop, i need to keep windows 7 on it for work purposes, but i am planning on installing 4 different distros of linux on there as well, after windows i have over 400 gig spare so what i wanted to do was create 4 partitions of 80 gigs each plus a swap drive partition that each distro of linux can share, is 80 gig each enough for fedora security lab, kubuntu, ubuntu multimedia studio and linux mint 9? also what format should i partition each as? can i make each distro create a home drive within its own partition?
I have Windows XP and OpenSuSE 11.1 installed on my laptop. I have recently removed the recovery partition provided by the laptop manufacturer (HP) to free up some space and ideally I would like to be able to add the free space to the existing Windows partition.The current partition set up is as follows:
Code: Disk size 93Gb, P = Primary, L = Logical, U = Unallocated P Windows XP 36Gb /dev/sda1 /windows
I have a new laptop, the HDD is 160 GB size, I would like to install several linux distros, such as Debian, UbuntuStudio and BackTRack, the HDD partition would be like this:
- first logical partition (100 GB): 3 ext3 extended partition (1 partition for each distro) -second logical partition (2 GB): swap -thid logical partition (55 GB): ext3 /home partition -four logical partition (3 GB): free space
is possible to share the swap and the /home partition between the 3 distros?
i decided to build a home server on an AMD64 (buyed some years ago) for file storage, printer sharing and something else... I've searched a lot for "the best distros for server" and discarding extreme solution (like command line only) what remains is: Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian
Now the problem: how to install more than one distros on the same hdd? what i know is that i need a bootloader (grub/lilo) and partitions for boot,swap, and remaining space will be split for the distro itself.
I think is a good idea to have a partition only for files (/data) that all distros can access, but for sure i'd like to have one /root and one /home partitions each distro!
I can't understand if the correct way is first of all to install a distro (let's say ubuntu), then set up everything such as partitions and bootloader and then install other distros. I'd like to know if it is possible to manage dinamycally the space reserved for distros, so i'll be able to install 2,3,4,5...distros with no problems.
I have 84GB free space on this hard drive and want to install another distro. Will I be able to create another / and /home partitions for the new distro?
I have a GRUB2 USB multiboot setup. Plus I have a multiboot setup on my computer with Ubuntu 9.10, PCLinuxOS, Windows XP, and Fedora 13. The issue I'm having is different but the same. On my USB multiboot, Fedora will hang up on certain devices. Things such as touchpad, bluetooth, etc. On my PC it hangs up on first the bluetooth, then I unplug, then the USB hub, then the mouse and finally the external hard drive. It detects the devices but it freezes on detection. I did get this error before the device detection began:
Quote:
dracut; dracut-005-3.fc13 dracut: FATAL: Don't know how to handle 'root=(0,4)' dracut: Refusing to continue dracut: FATAL: Don't know how to handle 'root=(0,4)' dracut: Refusing to continue
this is on the PC and the problem with the USB is that it will hang up when detecting devices.
I got a PC (32 bit) from my friend that has Fedora & Ubuntu on single HDD. Now I need to install Suse on the same HDD without destroying other distros. What are the prerequisites for this? & how to do this step by step. I'm not sure how the before installation is done?? I'm not sure about grub editing/tweaking. At present installation of SUSE is very important. Ubuntu 10.04 Fedora 13 OpenSuse 11.3
I'd like to install xp, win7, fedora, ubuntu. I installed xp then I used gparted to create a partition before xp and installed w7 both can dual boot fine. I installed fedora 12 in grub I can see fedora and windows bootloader. I can get to win7 and login fine. When I go into grub, then win bootloader, then xp, I can get to the login screen, but I can't login. I enter my pw, it takes several seconds, seems to login, then quickly logs out. I see "closing network connections", then I'm back to the xp login screen again. I'm not sure why I can't login to the xp partition. Fedora and win7 work fine. Win7 & xp worked fine before fedora. Grub menu.lst looks ok. After fixing this, I'd like to next install ubuntu
I am desperately looking for a how to : multiboot. Checked bodhi.zazen's thread, but its totally with reference to GRUB Legacy. I have karmic installed and also vista. wondering if there is a step-wise guide to multiboot with reference to Grub2. I want to add a SUSE, Fedora and Lubuntu, but have no clue as to how. I messed up my comp earlier trying to multiboot so now I just dual-boot Windows Vista and Karmic Koala.
I wonder why my hard disk (with Fedora 11 on) is not seen by live cd distros (I tried with Knoppix 6.2 and Vector Light). In the past (before f11) this never happened
when so many Linux distros are available for free..than why did u choose fedora only.? what features attracted u towards it and what makes it different from others Linux distributions.
I got Fedora LiveCD version on my USB....but I would like to test many other distros on the same USB. Is there a way to have all of the distros on my USB, and when I open the boot menu on startup, I can choose which distro to boot?
I have another distro on my puter which has packages install on /opt which is on its own partition. i'm wondering how i can pull those packages into fedora.
On my network I have one computer running Fedora 14 and another running Ubuntu 1.0. I need to sync Evolution between these 2. The problem is Evolution folders have different content in the 2 distros. Is there a way to sync e-mails, contacts etc, between these 2 distros?
There is an obscure X11 config line (busid) necessary for using more than one video card (not sure about SLI) on fedora11, ubuntu, maybe other distros as well. obscure for me until; yesterday, I mean... I tried several methods and eventually found the solution that to my dismay was already extensively documented but is seemingly hard to find.
I was in the process of installing Fedora 12 when it came to the "Operating Systems List". Here it recognised only Windows and none of the other 4 Linux distros already installed. Looking at the option to "add" and then given the drop down list for each partition, can someone tell me what to enter in the LABEL box for these partitions, or how to find what to enter in these boxes to enable these distros to be booted?
I used Ubuntu before, without problems but since the 10.04 version it won't recognize my partitions. I formated my laptop and partitioned it, installed Windows 7 64bit, which I need for my work, and wanted now to install Ubuntu 10.04/10. I then used GParted to check my Harddisk and it is having troubles to recognize my partitions, too while Windows finds them. GParted is giving me an error message saying my partitions are oversized. I am still in the beginning of my Linux experiences and so I don't know what to do. I have two 250GB harddisks (how Windows recognizes them),
I have vista and opensuse 11.2 on my computer, the problem is i can't open ext3 partitions from vista but i can the other way. I tried Ext2fsd but the linux partition is always in a read only mood even when i change this option. Also, all folders are empty I downloaded the program as admin and compatable with XP SP2.
Xubuntu 9.04 installation CD not detecting any of the current partitions. This all started when I reinstalled windows XP a few days ago.After, the computer wouldn't boot into GRUB and would boot directly into windows.Other threads have dealt with a similar issue, that of overlapping partitions causing libparted/parted/gparted to detect the whole drive as unallocated space. The problem in these threads seemed to be a corrupted partition table, in which the partitions overlapped with each other. So of course I checked the output of fdisk -l for overlapping partitions, but I don't see any obvious overlapping partitions. I've noticed that the partition that used to be linux swap isn't showing up in the partition table at all. I might just be missing something simple here and would like another set of eyes to help me figure this one out. Does the problem have anything to do with the partition table being out of order (ie. not in order of what regions they cover on the drive)? From the liveCD I've run
I've installed Arch Linux onto my Western Digital SATA drive.I love it, best ever, however, I need the fglrx proprietry driver for better 3-d performace, and decided to create a new partition. I decided to install Linux Mint.Sadly, in all my noobishness, I forgot about the 4 primary partition limit (oops!) and as I have /, /home, swap, and /boot partitions (all primary) already installed, I have run into a bit of a problem.I resized my /home partition (almost 500GB) to about 225, and was then told I have over 200GB unusable space. Is it possible for me to change at least 1 of my primary partitions to logical partitions AND keep all the data intact (AND edit the arch configuration so that it'll still work) so I can install a second linux? I sincerely doubt it
I am installing Ubuntu on the same hard drive as Windows 7. The partitions of Windows 7 have already occupied the left part of the hard drive. From left to right, the Windows partitions are one partition for Windows booting, one for Windows OS and software installation, and one for data which is planned to mount on Ubuntu. I was wondering how to arrange the order of partitions of root, home and swap, i.e. which is on the left just besides one Windows partition, which is in the middle and which is on the far right?
I have a USB PenDrive (FAT32 file system) that has 2 boot options. Boot option 1 = runs a program that updates my BIOS. Boot option 2 = runs a program that executes a basic hardware test on the PC. I don't need to access any HDD or load any operative system. the pen drive is using a DOS bootstrap (like the one you obtain when you format a device using /s option under DOS).
Can I use an advanced graphical bootloader to accomplish the same thing? It would be nice to have a background bootsplash logo of the company, while the user selects one of the two boot options, using the cursor keys. Just like GRUB...
I just got a new netbook and want to install several distro's to play with so would appreciate any advice you have. I have a 160gb drive so was going to dedicate 10gb to each distro and to xpsp3 that is comes with and about 2-4 gb for meego. Here are the distro's i want to install if possible...I am in love with KDE again so starting with Kubuntu
the last 100gb I was wanting for mp3/movies/docs.i was planing on putting the 100gb in NTFS so it could be shared with each OS? Not sure if that is possible or if there is a better solution but i want to be able to access the files from each os - in linux you just mount that partition to access it? and then i would also be able to access it via windows. I am assuming windows cannot see the ext3 file system and/or it is easier to use NTFS?right now xpsp3 is installed so not sure if can back it up via usb or if i can just download a version and burn a cd as i have a key and use WinToFlash to put it on a flash drive or can i just make partitions leaving the xpsp3 install on the netboot?
Any opinions on filesystem / order of installs / how much drive space is ideal per distro / is it even possible for that many os's / which boot loader to use?
I've been running windows xp and ubuntu 10.4 on a dual boot for a bit now and decided to add the intel version of osx to my multi boot. I created a partition and installed osx without any problems. The only problem is, now when I turn my pc on all it sees it windows xp and I don't no enough to know how to fix it. How can I sort this problem out? If I cant get it all working, I at least want to get xp and ubuntu back to normal.
