Multibooting *Nix's
 

I run many flavors of unix and linux. I can seem to dual boot Windows with Linux/unix just fine....but everytime I attempt to install another nix either on the same hd or on a secondary...it causes all sorts of problems. So many, in fact...that it would be a book in length just to document all the various issues I've had with the many different os's I've tried.(I'm at work and don't have the time to spell out the entire situation). Here's a brief list of the os's I've tried together. If anyone could point me in various directions regarding making any of these work that would be great. The first OS is the first OS installed....the second is the second OS installed.


Debian/Slackware
Debian/Mandrake
Debian/Debian
Debian/RedHat
Debian/FreeBSD
Debian/Gentoo
Slackware/Knoppix
Slackware/FreeBSD
Slackware/Syllabus
Slackware/Solaris
FreeBSD/NetBSD
FreeBSD/OpenBSD
Mandrake/Debian
Mandrake/Slackware
Mandrake/FreeBSD


Thanks!!!

Wow! So many tries. What were the problems? Please give some detail about the error messages, etc. Normally when you install more than one UNIX and configure the boot loader there shouldn't be a problem.

Basically, the procedure is as follows:

Install your new distro, eg Slackware, without (skip) installing a bootloader



The following steps are done in your original distro (the one with the working bootloader):

Make a directory in /mnt called "Slackroot"

Edit /etc/fstab to load your new Slack root partition under /mnt. Example:
Naturally, you would change the information to suit your setup


Edit /etc/lilo.conf and add an entry for Slack. With the above example, it would look like this:
Save and run (as root) "lilo -v"

That's it. Please note, this is how I do it, I'm sure there are other methods. Also remember some distro's will need different entries in lilo.conf, depending on the kernel image and where it's stored.

edit: spelling