[solved] How can I Multi-boot multiple Linux Distro's?

[_grizZly_]

Hey LMF,

I'm new to multi-boot systems and I need some help and advice on 'how to...' and on deciding the best way to configure my system(s).

Please bear with me as I have quite a few questions...

Re: HDD partitions >>

1. Should '/boot' be on the first primary partition (e.g. sda1 = 100MB ext4 /boot)?
-- is this different to the MBR?

2. Do all the distro's I install share the /boot partition?
-- If so how do I set it up so it doesn't get overwritten by each one in turn because otherwise it ends up that I can only boot the last distro I install?

3. Can all the distro's safely share the same swap space partition? (I'm aware of the risk when hibernating one dist then booting another)

My thoughts/proposed partition config is as follows:

Code: Select all


Drive    |    Mount    |    Format    |    Size (MB)   
----------------------------------------------------------
sda1           /boot         ext4           100

sda2
   | --        swap        linux swap     4096 (4GiB)
   |
   | --        /home         ext4         51,200 (50GiB)
   |
   | --        /var          ext4         10,240 (10GiB)

sda3
   | --        /Mint13       ext4         20,480 (20GiB)
   |
   | --        /Fedora17      ''              ''
   |
   | --        /Mageia2       ''              ''
   |
   | --        /SuSE12        ''              ''
   |
   | --        ...etc...



4. Is this a viable structure?

5. How much space should I give to /var?

6. How much space should I give to each distro?

My thought was have my swap, /home and /var closest to the spindle (I'm using a mechanical HDD not SSD!) then have my distro's each with their own root partition.

One final question I'd like to know is...

7. is it possible to have a virtual machine (i.e. using VirtualBox) run a 'real' installed distro from a HDD partition as a VM inside one of the other distro's?

I realise that I could just install one 'base' distro then install all of the others as purely virtual machines. But I'd want to be able to keep their VHD's on a separate partition so as not to fill my /home drive with huge files. Also my reason for NOT using VM's from the off is performance. My CPU does not support native virtualisation technologies so I'm worried that if I ran all of my secondary distro's as VM's then they wouldn't perform as well.

Thanks so much for sticking with me and for any help/advice anyone is able to offer.


Kindest regards,

Chris

[sagirfahmid3]

HOLD IT RIGHT THERE

You do NOT need multiple partitions in this day and age for Linux! You only need a / (root) partition! (swap is good just in case you run outa RAM)

1. DON'T make a /boot partition, there isn't a point to unless you are going to have a full encrypted system.
2. NO
3. YES. Make a swap partition of 2GBs at most.
4. No. Again, like I said..you cant share /boot partitions. Just FORGET the boot partition, imagine it's not there, that it's invisible. All you NEED is a SINGLE SWAP partition, and for each distro a / partition. When the time comes to install a bootloader, DECLINE. Just run "update-grub" on your Mint (or whatever distro you installed first) and it will automatically add the other distros to the boot menu.
5. None.
6. Divide the space up equally.
7. No.

[_grizZly_]

@sagirfahmid3 Whoa, hold on there Mr shouty red words! I'm not sure that I follow you're logic there, a lot of tutorials I've read suggest creating separate partitions for /boot, swap, and /home at the very least!

Re:
1) Every distro I've tried to install has asked me to specify a /boot partition ? !
2) I installed Fedora 17 in the spare space after my Mint 13 OS (putting it's boot in a separate partition), after the install I loaded Mint and ran 'update-grub' but it failed to detect the new Fedora partition and did not add a menu option for me to boot it! In fact I still can't boot it, it's a complete waste of HDD space atm.
3) 2GB - 4GB swap ? Who's counting? I'm not beyond the ability to make my own judgement call on how much swap space to use!
4) Forget that the boot partition is there? REALLY ? !! -- Why not forget that the hard-drive is there, and the memory? Why not refer to the hard-drive as memory? What is this the Amish Linux Forum? -- We're techies, we like to know what's inside and what's going on inside our computers and electronic devices!
5) I would like to see any linux distro work with zero drive space for the /var partition! -- It's kind of where a lot of (moderately) important stuff goes!
6) Duh, some distro's require more space than others. For example it could be considered wasteful to allocate a 500GB partition to something like Puppy, Slax or xPUD! -- what is the minimum most mainstream distro's would require to work properly? 5GB, 10GB, 20GB, more?
7) It is possible but it can be very difficult to configure (going by some research and advice from other forums)

Whilst I realise the whole "just dump everything in to one folder" approach is the simplest, but that is somewhat missing the point. What is the best?
Plus also consider that what is the best for some configurations wont necessarily be the best for others.

Having a shared /home partition (with separate sub-folders to avoid config issues) would allow some-one to be able to upgrade or replace their distro with another, or to update the kernel without loosing all of their personal files and settings. If they used your suggestion then they would not have this flexibility!

I realise that my idea is somewhat unorthodox but is my personal motivation for strange configurations really what I wanted to discuss? No! However...

** I see where you're comming from and I do appreciate your 'advice' **

...so thank you, but please don't be offended if I take advice from others before taking your proposed simplified (or 'head in the sand') approach!

[altair4]

I'm not going to get in the middle of this ( since I agree with sagirfahmid3 and I don't want to appear to gang up on you ) but items 4 and 5 of your last post are a misinterpretation of what sagirfahmid3 said. He never said you didn't require a /boot and /var directory. You just don't need them to be separate partitions.

[sagirfahmid3]

Re: Re:
1. That means from what PARTITION are you going to boot from? That would be / (root)
2. You can MANUALLY add Fedora to grub by editing menu.lst and adding the UUID of that partition and hd#, part# (example: root (hd#,{part}#) )
3. Use whatever space you want man, nobody in their right minds would use more than 2 or 3 Gigs at most. But hey, you're the noob here so make your own decisions.
4. Technical? You want to get technical is that right? How about researching what the hell the boot partition even does before replying with a stupid answer? If you're so technical, why are you even on this forum, WHY are you using Linux MINT specifically--shouldn't you be using Slackware and compiling your own things? Shouldn't you be making your OWN Linux, your OWN kernel, it seems you like that sort of stuff even though you don't have a clue what is going on! Start from the bottom and move up to the top!
5. You have no idea what you are talking about...Please go and educate yourself: http://tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/
6. You're the boss, you decide. As long as the partition is above 10GBs I would say.
7. If you already know the answer, good for you. Why'd you ask this question in the first place? Waste people's time?

If you're gonna be answering like an ass, nobody's going to help you! You're the new guy so if you're gonna talk like a smartass (while CLEARLY having no idea about the Linux filesystem), why do we forum members have to help someone like you?

[squeezy]

When the time comes to install a bootloader, DECLINE. Just run "update-grub" on your Mint (or whatever distro you installed first) and it will automatically add the other distros to the boot menu.

I agree with your approach and is how I do my multiboot setups, except for the piece I quoted. I tried doing that, not installing grub, and when I updated grub on my main installation it added four lines for each new distro. I have one installation I call the main installation and I let that one install grub to the MBR of the disk. That's the grub menu I see when booting.

I now install grub with a new distro, but I install it to that distro's partition. That way the distro can update its own grub anytime it wants and I simply update grub on my main installation and it adds/changes the normal two lines for the new distro.

[HughT]

Hi Chris, I'm afraid that I'm going to agree with Mr Shouty Red Words. It's not necessary to have so many partitions. The use of individual partitions for boot, var, home, usr, proc etc dates back to the days when disks had very limited capacity. So the different parts of a system just had to be distributed over several disks. I'd guess that a popular set up would have perhaps 20GB for the OS, possibly more if you expect to add lots of extra programs (GParted has just shown me that mine is 20GB, with 15 used - which includes /home, while a recent fresh install of Mint 13 Mate is using 4.8GB); Swap would be about twice the size of RAM; then /home would be what-ever you expect to need. If you regularly install different distros to test/play with then a boot partition can be considered. I try distros every couple of months, but simply return boot to my working distro with a grub-install command each time. Var was often kept separate to avoid a runaway process generating excessive log reports and filling up the whole OS disk. If you wish to have dedicated /home partitions then be sure to give each a unique name for each distro.
So, what is the "best" solution? You'll get many answers. Bear in mind that some distros are aimed at enterprises (I'm thinking Red Hat) while others for home eg Mint, so the different requirements will lead to different arrangements. Perhaps you've started an interesting debate here. Let's hope it remains a debate and not a shouting match, because I'd be interested in your conclusions. regards

[_grizZly_]

Hey, whoa chill out guys.

All I wanted was someone who was able to answer the questions I asked. Not shout at me and treat me like a complete idiot.

YES you pretty much all will have more experience of linux than me, but if you want people to learn then why go off at them as soon as they ask a question?
I've been working in IT for over a decade and in that time I've used tons of different hardware and software, from DOS through Windows 3.0 up to 7, Ubuntu, SuSE, Mint. I've managed web servers, file servers, corporate windows networks and I've been building computers and taking a passionate interest in the hardware since I was the days of 386's and Battle of Britton (game)!

I appreciate that perhaps I misinterpreted @sagirfahmid3's tone in his first answer and if that's the case I apologise. And I did state in my response that I appreciated his advice, and I am grateful for him taking the time to answer. But it was his tone and attitude I didn't appreciate!

Whilst I realise that my tone may also have been open to misinterpretation there's no need for @sagirfahmid3 to then go off insulting me with derogatory remarks! My responses to his advice (given tutorials and magazines I've read, as well as information from other sources) were and are valid. If you feel that this is wrong then don't blame me for being confused by contradictory information from people I'm looking to as 'experts'.

I would hope and appreciate if we could agree that his hostility is useless and move on like mature adults.


Kindest regards,

Chris

[GeneC]

Chris

This may be of help.
Its my partitioning scheme. I currently have a quad boot. (EMPTY is now filled with Maya XFCE )



I have had this for a couple years and its worked perfectly.
No need to make a new swap for each install. The existing swap is identified automatically with a new installation.
When installing (select manual partitioning) just pick whatever partition (empty or not) and format it as / (root).
The installtion will install a new grub to MBR should automatically find all the other installs.
If not, run

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub

and it will.

[_grizZly_]

Hey thanks @GeneC that is really helpful!

...and @sagirfahmid3 the link you posted to the linux documentation project is really helpful too, thanks!

I am genuinely trying to learn more about every aspect of Linux and I'm driving myself up some fairly steep learning curves in my efforts to get up to speed quickly. I've used windows for so long that it was second nature to me but now I've switched over to linux (largely because I'm now working as a freelance web developer and it makes sense for me to use a development platform similar to those which the websites are hosted on -- i.e. a LAMP stack) I feel as though I've been missing out all these years. So now I'm learning everything from bash scripting, compiling from source, file/system management etc. and I have a keen interest to learn python/GTK+ then hopefully eventually C/C++.

[GeneC]

I did my first Linux install (Mint 9) as a lark just about two years ago.
A month later, install LMDE over the existing Win98 partition and never looked back....

I'd bet you will do the same...

[sagirfahmid3]

_grizZly_ no problem, I do apologize for shouting Let's forget about the argument!