I want to test out a few distros of linux at the same time.

right now I'm using Zenwalk 6

What steps do i need to take so i have have multiple o.s. installed on one computer?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!


-Andy




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“Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.”
“Marriage is a three rings circus: engagement rings , wedding rings and sufferings.”

I would test them out in VirtualBox. It will let install & run an operating system in a virtual environment with out making changes to your current installation.

I too would recommend VirtualBox if you are only doing this to get a taste of the different distros.

If you really want multiboot, the general procedure is:

1. During the install of the first distro, partition the disk so there is room for each of the distros you plan to install (eg 10Gb+ each). They can share a swap partition (since only one will run at a time). Some people also create a data partition that they share between all the distros.

2. During the partition phase in the subsequent install of other distros, make sure you only format (and set up the mount point '/') for the partition you want to use.

Many of the major distro installations will set up grub for you, automatically detecting all the previously installed operating systems and creating an appropriate boot menu list. Perhaps install more obscure distros first (in case they don't do this); leave a major distro like Fedora or Ubuntu to be the last one.