Two distros in one laptop

abutua · 03-09-2007, 11:04 PM

I am just wondering if I could have two distros, say Novell and Red Hat, in one compy? I have enough space in my box, I believe.

jacook · 03-09-2007, 11:07 PM

sure you can, provided you have got the system recources to back it up with such as RAM etc.

Jake

abutua · 03-09-2007, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jacook

... system recources to back it up with such as RAM etc.

Jake

System resources such as RAM. What do you mean? I have about 1.24GB of RAM. Other things to back up? I have an external hd of about 120GB.

Thanks for the quick reply.

J.W. · 03-10-2007, 04:05 PM

You can easily dual boot two Linux distros (or Linux and Windows) from a single PC or laptop. The main restriction is just with disk space; obviously you have to have the physical capacity to house both of them. If you've got 120G, you've got plenty. Have fun

SactoBob · 03-10-2007, 04:28 PM

An easy way to do it is to install VMWare Player, build a virtual machine with easyvmx.com and run any number of distros. There are other virtual machine software packages available too, but VM Player is free, fast, and easy.

Valkyrie_of_valhalla · 03-10-2007, 05:28 PM

Sure you can... You have 2 possibilities:

1. Install distro1 with grub/lilo, then install distro2 without a bootloader and then edit grub/lilo so that it can boot both of them (but it might be a bit tricky)

2. Install distro1, install distro2 with bootloader, and it should automatically recognise the other bootable partition and add it.

It's a good way of learning how the bootloader works

RevenantSeraph · 03-10-2007, 06:01 PM

What I did was get GParted on a liveCD, then partitioned my hard drive into two. Then you can install one OS on each, and Grub will give you the option of which you want to use during startup.