Dual boot with Red Hat and Mandrake

billonesty · 01-29-2003, 09:08 AM

I have Red Hat 8.0 installed on a 20 G partition of a 60 G drive. I want to also install Mandrake 9.0 on another partition and be able to boot into either. WHY? Because I can and because I want to compare them.

I know there is a boot partition, and root partition and a swap partition already set up for RH. I want to add the Mandrake but the procedure is confusing once I get into that portion of the installation procedure from the Mandrake installation.

Anyone have some detailed help for me to get going in the right direction? (Once I am successful, I want to put SuSE on a third partition. I know, I am crazy. At some point I will get bored with the comparison and settle on one installation. But I will also be an expert on partitions and dual boot systems and will know something of the limitations of this feature.)

Any ideas?

MasterC · 01-29-2003, 09:49 AM

You want the long or the short version? Oh, the long? Cool

You've got 60 GB. Let's say for easy sake, you don't wanna have a "common" partitition between the distros. You want them all to have their own little partitions. Good. So let's create them. You have 20 gigs already spoken for, however 40 are just floating around. Create partitions on them. I'd seperate them into 2 20 gig partitions, simply for ease. Now, you've got basically 3 20 gig partitions spoken for (whatever RH did with it's 20 is cool, it's spoken for nonetheless). Ok, now install Mandy on the second 20. When you get to the partition portion on the Mandy install, be sure you click on 1 of the 20 GB partitions, and only install to it (leaving 20 more free for SuSE). During the install it will ask where to install LILO, this is where you will make the decision on which bootloader to use, it's personal preference since both LILO and GRUB will do a fine job. I'd go for LILO, but that's just me. So, I would, during the Mandrake install, install LILO into the MBR.

Ok, cool. Now you won't be able to boot into RH without a rescue floppy, no worries. Once you finish the Mandrake install and boot up, you will be able to mount the RH partition at any given mount point (let's call it /mnt/redhat). So you will need to copy the kernel to your Mandrake /boot directory. Locate the RH kernel (most likely called vmlinuz-kernelversion) on the /mnt/redhat/boot directory, and copy it over to your /boot directory. Rename it to something easy to remember. I'd say vmlinuz-redhat. Cool, now create an entry in /etc/lilo.conf for the new kernel. Something like:

Code:

image=/boot/vmlinuz-redhat
        label=RH
        root=/dev/hda5
        append="quiet hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi"
        initrd=/boot/initrd.img
        vga=791
        read-only

Adjust to suite your needs. The root= line is the one to pay close attention to. This is the ROOT ( / ) directory/partition of your RH install, NOT the ROOT directory of your Mandrake (the current / ) install. This is where some seem to get confused.

Ok, after that's done, be sure to rerun lilo to make the changes take effect:
/sbin/lilo -v

And now you can restart. You should be able to boot into RH now, and enjoy both distros.

Along comes SuSE. Toss it on the last 20GB, when you get to boot loader, don't install it. Finish up the install, and do the same thing. Boot into Mandrake, mount the SuSE partition go to the /boot directory of the SUSE partiition and copy the kernel into your Mandrake /boot directory. Create another entry in /etc/lilo.conf for SuSE, might be:

Code:

image=/boot/vmlinuz-suse
       label=SuSE
        root=/dev/hda8
        append="quiet hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi"
        initrd=/boot/initrd.img
        vga=791
        read-only

Again, adjusting to your needs, and watching the root partition

HTH

Cool

fstreed · 01-29-2003, 10:07 AM

I have Mandrake 9.0 on a 10 gig partition of a 40 gig hard drive. I then installed SuSE 8.0 on a second 10 gig partition of the same drive. I haven't had very good luck dual booting linux from the MBR, it seems something always goes wrong, so I told SuSE to install LILO on a floppy. Now if I want to boot into mandrake it does so automatically on start up. I have the BIOS set with the floppy drive as the first boot device and if I want to boot into SuSE I simply insert the floppy disk with the SuSE LILO and start the computer. Not as elegant as dual booting, I know, but simple and it works.

I also have Red Hat on another hard drive, and ELX on a third drive. I recently bought a gizmo called a TRIOS II that plugs into my computer and allows me to select which hard drive I want to use with the click of a button. I have had it for about a week now and it works well, and it sure makes life easier if you want to experiment with different distros.

As for my comparison test of Mandrake, SuSE, and Red Hat, well I like them all. Each has things I like better than the others but I could happily live with any of them.

MasterC · 01-29-2003, 10:11 AM

TRIOS II Got a link to a product description? Sounds pretty cool

Not for this, since I never ever ever ever ever ever (get the point

) ever have problems dual+ booting with LILO, but just as something to know about, and learn about.

Cool

bubba169 · 01-29-2003, 10:30 AM

Here one link

http://www.linuxcentral.com/catalog/..._code=H000-013

And another one

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/tigerdir...75-2000-p.html

And the Manufacturer's website

http://www.romtecusa.com/trios/product/t2_main.htm

I did see the Trios (not the Trios II) at the local Office Depot it looks pretty cool

Bubba169

MasterC · 01-29-2003, 10:36 AM

That looks pretty damn cool! Thanks for the links Bubba!

Cool

fstreed · 01-29-2003, 10:47 AM

The TRIOS II has advantages over the original TRIOS. For one thing it will let you use drive #1 as master and drive #2 or #3 as slave.

I got mine on ebay. Some guy has been listing them and they usually go for about $50 to $55, as opposed to the $70 they retail for. I like mine, neat little piece of hardware.

MasterC · 01-29-2003, 10:49 AM

What are the slots outside the PCI for? The ones that look like nic slots?

Cool

fstreed · 01-29-2003, 11:02 AM

The thing uses a PCI slot to support it, but it doesn't use the PCI intrface for any power or data transfer. It is just a convienient place to put it. The control unit is separate and uses a cable that plugs into the trios thing in the computer. I mounted the control unit on the bottom of my monitor uses double sided tape provided with the unit. It also uses a transformer that plugs into the back of it to keep it powered up so you can choose hard drives before you turn the computer on. As for power to the hard drives, it just powers up the drive(s) you are using and so saves wear on the HDDs not being used.

The plug in slots on the back of the unit are for the transformer and the one that looks like a network plug in, a RJ45 jack looking thing, is for the control unit to plug into.