Windows plus more than 1 (one) Linux distro in GRUB?
 

So now that I have the hang of installing linux on the same hard drive as my windows hard drive (onto a partition), I am wondering if I can have more than one distrobution of Linux on the drive. Will the GRUB window show me three choices instead of just two? My guess is that I can use Gparted to resize the partition that my current (only) linux distro is running on/from, then create a new partition and format it to ext3, ext4 (what is the difference?), BUT.... will this process simply update GRUB, not overwrite it thus giving me three options?

Something like this -

1.) boot from Linux (distro one)
2.) boot from linux (distro two)
3.) boot from windows

phazon,

This is absolutely possible... you can just keep adding distros until you are out fo disk space, and grub will handle them all... :)

As for the difference between ext3 & ext4, check here... http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/05/ext2-ext3-ext4/

awesome....

Now, the next question.

Right now I have 2 partitions for windows formatted as NTFS. One tiny one (that I did not create) and one big one that I am assuming is where the bulk of it resides
I also have 2 partitions for SolydK(linux). One formatted as ext4 and the other as linux swap.

Do I need to create a seperate partition to add UBUNTU?

Problem is, the partitioning software says I can't have more than 4 primary partitions (I think "primary" is the word it used).

Can I just install UBUNTU onto the the same partition as the one SolydK is on?

Thanks

when using gparted, it tells me that I can not have more than 4 primary partitions, and it suggests that I do an exttended partition. Don't seem to be able to discover how to do a extended partition. Youtube almost useless....

This has been covered innumerable times here at LQ. The 4 primary limit is an old MS-DOS (not Linux) limitation. You have to delete (at least) one of the current partitions. Free up as much (contiguous) space as possible. Then allocate all that space as an extended partition - this is a "container" for new partitions (called logical partitions) where you can install Linux in as many (logical) partitions as will fit. The extended is a type of primary partition - see wikipedia for more info on primary/extended/logical.

Don't delete the Windoze partitions - resize if you need to, but don't delete. Windoze is so brain dead it can't handlle booting from a logical partition, although it can use logicals for data partitions.

syg00 - thanks. I think that this is the simple answer I was looking for. It may have been covered here at LQ, but after 8 pages of search, I gave up. It might be buried somewhere, but then , i might just be impatient.

Either way, your answer is efficient and hugely helpful. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

So, I am a assuming that once one of the primary partitions is gone, that while in gparted, when I go to create a new partition in the unallocated space that is left, it will give me the choice to create an extended drive versus a primary or logical....

Then it should give me the choice to create drives within that one...

Right now, it simply assumes that I am trying to create a primary drive and gives me no choices. I am wondering why it won't allow an extended drive in the free, unallocated space, but then maybe the 4 primary drives is just giving it the head ache.

I will delete my SolydXK drive, then start from scratch.

By the By , since grub is on the SolydXK drive, what will happen to my ability to boot from windows once that drive is gone?


Hmmmmmmm,

As I said above - you are already at the limit for primary partitions. Once you delete a partition, click the "apply" button in gparted to harden the change - then you can allocate the extended. Apply that, then create the logicals(s). Apply that change.
Not always necessary to apply every change, but when screwing with partition safety pays (note my sigline in this context also).

When you delete the system that owns the MBR-resident boot code (Linux or Windoze), you lose the ability to reboot. Simply install another Linux, and it will re-write the MBR and re-establish the boot and access to both Windoze and Linux. If you install several Linux', you have to be similarly aware of which (currently) owns that MBR-resident code.

Ok, here is what all happened.

I deleted the swap drive.
shrank the larger ext4 drive to about half.
made the unallocated space left over into an extended drive.
created a logical drive (large) ext4 for the next linux distro
created a logical swap drive
installed Ubuntu on new ext4 drive

Now grub shows three possible boots

1.) SolydK
2.) Ubuntu
3.) Windows 7

but wait, windows 7 won't boot from grub.

so I got this link form a forum moderator in the ubutnu forum

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295

following this fixed it. NOTE: must do this from live DVD, not from booted version from HDD

I am good to go with windows and 2 linux distros.

ow if I could ust get the curser to keep moving when holding down a button in Solydk or get Draftsight to install in Ubuntu and get my wirless printer to print form Ubuntu.

Yay!

Cursor thing was fixed in SolydK by opening the keyboard configuration in settings and found the repeat function was turned off. Turned it on, now it works as expected.

I am told that the default after installation is to be on.

Can't say why it was off.

In particuler, this is the site I went to to fix my grub

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

cheers

oh, ooh, oh!

I forgot to mention, becauase I had to delete the original swap partiton in order to bring the number of "primary" partitions down to less tan 4 in order to create the extended drive then logical drives, I had to "tell" my first distro (SolydK) where to find the new location of the swap partition.

After I deleted the swap partition, created the extended partition, created the logical partitions (one ext4, one swap [the new swap]), intalled the new distro (ubuntu), then fixed the grub by following the instructions found here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

I booted up in SolydK (my first linux distro) and used to terminal to perform the following;


If and when a swap partition is moved (or obsorbed, and a new one created to take it's place), you have to "tell" your distors where it is. You have to "tell" the distros what it's UUID is.

This is so the other distributions can find it.

If the swap partition was deleted and re-made somewhere else in order to accomidate the insatallation of a new distro, as it was in my case, then the newest distro installation will more than likely already know where it is because you "pointed" to it durng the installation.

In order to "show" the other, older distro installations where the swap now resides, do this with each older distro.

While booted in the other/older distro(s), open the terminal and enter

find (copy) the UUID for the "swap" partition.

"fstab" is a text document in a folder named "etc" in "root". Use a text editor to paste the UUID given for "swap", after running sudo blkid, into the fstab text document. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is;

Enter the following

this will open a text editor with the contents of the "fstab" document which is located in the "etc" folder

gedit may not be available in all distros so this command may not work, so open your favorite text editor, and open the "fstab" document located in "etc" in root. In either case, once you are looking at the contents of "fstab" in your text editor

replace the UUID of the one listed there for "swap" with the one you copied after running and save.

You have to do this while in the terminal window while booted in each distro, so repeat this for each of the older distros (not the newest one that already knows where the swap partition is)

Sorry I did not mention this earlier.

So that was my full adventure with moving partitions around and adding more than one linux distro to my HDD which already had, and still has Windows.

I am pretty sure that you won't have to do all of this if you have not touched the swap partition during the creation of a new partitions....