Installing two distros on one HD
 

I have one 20GB hard disk that I divided into 2 of 10GB partitions.
In one partitions I installed MDK9.2 with /swap, / , /boot, /usr and /home linux partitions.
If I want to install another distro into the 2nd 10GB partition, do I have to make /swap, / , /boot , /usr and /home partitions or can I just leave the distro to prepare itself ? Does the second distro also use /swap partition of MDK9.2 or have to own its /swap?

In increasing issues, you can definitely share swap, and also boot and even home. Home can be an issue with config files - screw up one, you screw up all, and if there are incompatibilities from version to version that could be an issue. Not really sure why boot would be a problem but I have heard people express reservations. And swap's a slam dunk. /, /usr, and so on, need to be separate.

One of those 'what I say, not what I do' things - don't look at my box - I've got several systems but it's all a mess. :)

Thanks for advice digiot.
Thought that I will try to make a separate linux partitions for each distro and cross my fingers not to mess up the box :)

for what's it worth to you.
I have a 20gig drive.
I have installed 3 distros with no problems
mandrake 9.1--mandrake 9.2--libranet 2.7
*each*has a 200mb swapfile..nb: swap gets barely used. have 512mb ram
Hadn't one problem with booting .

Thanks Ajarn for your advice.
BTW, do you also have root , /usr , /home partitions for each distro ?
What about lilo ?
TIA

No, I have **choosen**. to take the default settings
/ (root) swap home.
This is good enough to learn whats going on.
your temp--usr--dev--etc will al be in the root directory.

Once you know what you are doing, you always can change it , if you have a good reason for it.
separate partitions certainly have their uses, but for home use, I personally don't think it is necessary

About lilo : I hadn't a problem, ans also didn't lift a finger to configure it.
everything happened automatic.

you do know they can all share the same swap file instead of wasting 400mb. No biggies, just letting you know.

another suggestion for the thread started, if this is all linux, you can use /home as one partition and all distros can share that as well.

Hi Ajarn and wldkos,
Thanks for all advices that I got. They help me understand how linux uses the partitions. Like I try to let the installation to arrange for default setting.
( But can I be assured the my already installed system does not go haywire ? )
TIA.

widkos

Yes, I am well aware of the possibility of only one swap for diff installs.
I choose this because *right now* I don't care about space-waste
Thanks

BUT, your idee about one /home I like that.
What are the difficulties in doing so ?
thanks

for that, you need to edit your lilo.conf and add your old distro img onto the boot list...

its very simple

use

other = /hada_old_linux/boot/boot_img
labe = "My old Linux"

make sure you store your bootloader in the native partition and not MBR...
If you're installing mandrake, you'll be asked for the option ...

If I have two hdd's, one with xp pro, the other mandrake 9.2, can I install mdk on the MBR on my second hdd (my first hdd having xp pro) ? Because I don't want to spend 50-80 bucks for trios.

What would I have to do to dual boot with lilo?

Thanks.

'cos linux treats every device as a file, there shouldn't be any pbm...

having said that, I would suggest you to try and catch somebody who's tried that before if you really don't want to mess up with it... or do a bit of experimentation...

with the /home partition, there is nothing distro specific on there, unlike /bin; /sbin and ;/usr (/usr/src/linuc - diff kernel)

with the /home partition, you can use any distro to mount that /home and everyone can have their /home/user files just on a diff distro.

i've put 2 different distros on the same computer. i put mandrake 9.2 on one hdd and suse on my second. i told suse to use the swap file on the 1st hard drive and it seems to work fine. i tried to tell it to use my /home partition on the other drive but it wouldn't do it cause the /home partition was ext3 and it said that the kernel wouldn't support it or something. i didn't try to fix it cause i was just messin around. but like i said it seemed to use the swap file (even one on a different hdd) just fine.