How can I add a third distribution to my boot setup ?

[RedeyeFR]

Hi everyone ! I'm here because I recently installed a dual boot setup on two SSD with two independent boot partitions so that my OS can still boot if the other one in the other SSD burns in hell. For more information, feel free to watch my post : viewtopic.php?t=375199.

My setup is as follows :
- A windows SSD with the windows EFI partition and the windows partitions (two restorations one, the windows partition, and the EFI in total).
- A Linux Mint SSD with Grub and my Linux setup in another partition.

I would now like to create a 100 go part in my Linux Mint SSD, and install Kali Linux in it. I would like my OS to be completely independent of one another and not being able to share files and folders. Can you help me out ? I don't want to lose a hard made setup that is working perfectly.

To add a bit of background, I want to build myself a home server and a friend of mine will come to explain me some security basics and asked me to install Kali Linux to follow his "course".

Thanks in advance as always, and have a wonderful day !

[mikeflan]

I don't want to lose a hard made setup that is working perfectly.

You could create a whole disk image with Foxclone if you have the space to store it. I would do that before a major change like this.

You could also just install Kali to another SSD. That is the option I prefer. Totally portable and independent OS's.

To install Kali next to LM you will need to create an EXT4 partition for Kali. Gparted is a good tool for that.

[AwesomeOpossum74]

Sounds like this would be a better candidate for virtual machines? More than one or two partitioned installs will likely get tedious to maintain.

[RedeyeFR]

You are probably right, I don't have the time these days to try to resize my Linux mint installation, maybe corrupting it, reinstalling the whole thing. I will just stick to Mint and use Kali in a VM inside Linux Mint for now, and if I ever get any problem regarding hardwares and drivers, I will add another hard drive to my machine.

Thanks for your insights !

[trytip]

did you sudo update-grub it's tricky dual-booting UEFI and MBR. i couldn't and had to add bootloader to an MBR drive, it's enough to confuse even developers.

[AndyMH]

- A Linux Mint SSD with Grub and my Linux setup in another partition.

Are you sure? if you did an 'erase and install' of mint, it is probable that grub got installed to the EFI partition on your win drive.

Rather than posting screenshots of win's disk management tool (which doesn't understand linux), it would be more helpful to post gparted screenshots.

[RedeyeFR]

I made sure that it would install on the Linux partition by disabling the ESP and BOOT flags of the Windows EFI before installing Mint, thanks to your instructions !

But that's ok, I will VM for now and if I get any problem, I'll try partitioning and installing it alongside Mint. But I don't really have the use for it yet, I mean I would do other kind of projects and that's cool but it's not worth the effort for now in my opinion. I need to get better familiarized with Linux before diving into Kali.