Installing 2 Linux distros with WinXP?

Hi Linux world.

I'm wanting to install 2 versions of Linux (FC2 and Slackware 9.1) along with Windoze XP.

I have an 80Gb drive, I usually set my linux up with 105MB for /boot, /5500MB for /, and 1024MB for my swap partition.

If I have 2 linux distros installed do I need to have a similar partition structure available for both, or is there some "Linux" way of doing it where I can share 1 or more partitions?

Also if the above is ok, how does lilo/grub pickup the 2nd install? Is it automatic, or do I need to fiddle with a conf file?

Your help will be greatly apprciated.

You only need 1 swap partiton. Prepare the partitions first with cfdisk or fdisk. I'd choose a single / partition for each with about 10Gb. Install Fedora first and write the bootloader (grub) to the MBR, master boot record. Then install Slack and don't install lilo (Slacks bootloader), in Fedora add an entry to /boot/grub/menu.lst like this

title Slack
root (hd0,8)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda9 vga=788

That boots Slack for me as I have it on /dev/hda9, as you can see. Alter that to fit wherever you choose to install it. You'll also need to alter the root (hd0,8) line as well. Grub counts from 0 so the 9 has become 8 and it uses numbers not letters so hda is (hd0). So if you use (for example) /dev/hdb4 grub would see that as (hd1,3).

Thank you very much for that information.

Another question. I know you can share the /swap partition but is a /boot required for the second distro? Or do I only need to have a / and dispence with the need to supply it with a /boot of its own?

Thank you in advance.

Afaik, you never need to supply a separate boot partition-- in fact, you never need to specify any partititons other than / and /swap. Any other necessary sections that could be separate partitions (such as /boot, /usr/ /home, /var, etc will just appear as folders in the root filetree if not mounted as separate partitions.

When dual-booting Linux, I wouldn't bother giving the second distro a separate /boot partition, especially since there's a good chance you'll need to copy the second distro's kernel to the first distro's /boot (assuming you're using the first distro's bootloader), in order to boot the second distro anyway.

Andrew if I wanted to use Debian 3.0r2 instead of Slack would the same Grub entry work as well?

Cheers (And thanks)

I've never used Debian so I don't know if it needs any special boot options or whatever. I know Mandrake won't boot without a string of extra options. Why don't you ask in the Debian forum? It's best to find out from people who know.

cheers, shall do.