Adding FC10 to a dual boot Win XP / RHEL system.

ahelis · 02-09-2009, 12:35 PM

I have search on this topic, but have turned up little details about adding a second Linux operating system to my current dual boot Win XP/RHEL system. I run RHEL WS3 and now 4 over the last few years and I would like to give Fedora 10 a try, to compare to RHEL. I have a lot of space on a partition within my RHEL installation that isn't being used (140GB) and though this would be a good place to install Fedora. The following outlines my current partitions and my proposed partitions. Where I would like some help, is in a sanity check.

Current Desktop:

Dual boot, Windows XP sp2 and RHEL WS4-U4

Hard Drive Partitions:

sda 38147MB Windows XP sp2
sdb 114471MB NTFS Data Drive for Windows
sdc 190780MB NTFS Data Drive for Windows
sdd 190780MB RHEL4 WS4

Code:

/dev/sdd
 /dev/sdd1   ext3      101MB - MBR /boot partition with Grub 0.97
 /dev/sdd2   LVMPV  190677MB

LVM Volume Groups
 VolGroup00
  LogVol00 /     10816MB
  LogVol01 swap   2080MB
  LogVol02 /usr  35008MB
  LogVol03 /var   2080MB
  LogVol04 /pub 140640MB

=======================================

Proposed Hard Drive Partitions:

Code:

/dev/sdd
 /dev/sdd1   ext3      101MB - MBR /boot partition with Grub 0.97
 /dev/sdd2   LVMPV  190677MB

LVM Volume Groups
 VolGroup00
  LogVol00 /     10816MB
  LogVol01 swap   2080MB
  LogVol02 /usr  35008MB
  LogVol03 /var   2080MB
  LogVol04 /pub  37862MB

  Fedora 10 new partitions:

  LogVol05 /     37862MB
  LogVol06 swap   2080MB
  LogVol07 /var   2080MB
  LogVol08 /usr  90234MB

After install I will add /pub to the fstab file in Fedora to be able to access the /pub partition from both Fedora and RHEL.

Questions:

1. During the Fedora 10 install (6 cdroms), the partitioning requires a /boot partition to be defined and I don't want to overwrite the current Grub boot partition I already have. To get around this, can I add a temporary boot partition to the end of /dev/sdb? This seems the only way to get to the next page which you can uncheck the box to prevent the installer from creating the boot partition.

Is this the right way to do it?

2. If yes, where do I find the Fedora kernel after installation to install to my existing boot partition?
3. Is there a generic installation guide for installing a second or additional Linux OS on an existing Linux system without wiping out the original MBR?