Hi all,

I am fairly new to Linux, I started using it in September 09.

My computer has an Intel Q6600 Quad Core, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, integrated audio and LAN, and ATI 3850 graphics card. I plan to upgrade to 4 or 6 GB of RAM the next time my type goes on sale locally. I am multi-booting with Windows XP on the first partition so we can run our old devices and Vista home premium on the second partition because that's what my wife uses. I still have 200 GB of space outside the Windows world for Linux use.

I have been mainly using Debian-based distros and I feel like I have narrowed down my choices to Ubuntu, Mint, Enlightenment and the upcoming Dreamlinux 4.0 (betas look sweet). IMHO each distro has its ups and downs.

I am able and willing to reformat the Linux portion of my hard drive, but I need to stop doing that every time I hop distros. It is getting annoying.

Can someone recommend a nice partition setup that would let me keep files like swap, home and applications separate from distros? Ideally I would like the boot menu to offer the choice of distros, then after logging in my home folders would be the same and the same apps would be offered. By the same token, if I were to add or update a distro, my home folder and apps should carry through.

Right now I am running Karmic 64-bit, though it has a number of on-screen artifacts that I don't like. Does anyone know if 32-bit does a better job of managing the catalyst graphics? The most annoying artifact is the row of pixels below the top panel in Gnome but above the top bar of applications. That one row of pixels gets scrambled all the time. Also if you drag an application downwards across the screen, it leaves a trail of 'X' buttons behind itself that are only cleared by switching desktops.

Has anyone successfully installed enlightenment into Mint?

Does anyone know a nice bootloader that offers a graphical package on Grub 2? Grub 1 used to have a nice window screen but it does not work in 2.0.

Thanks for the input!
Pauly

Hi Pauly, I would highly recommend choosing a single stable distribution that will meet your needs for the foreseeable future, then using VirtualBox (or similar) for your distro-hopping experiments.

I personally have CentOS as the host system (not necessarily recommending CentOS for your needs, just mentioning it as an example... Debian Lenny, Ubuntu 8.04, etc. are also very stable) and Arch, Ubuntu 10.04, and Fedora Rawhide all running as virtual machines.

Hi Pauly,

Another suggestion or two:

You can share /home and /swap partitions among distros, no problem. Just use the same partition name in the /etc/fstab file where you specify where to mount the /home partition.
CAUTION: Use a different username on each distro that will be sharing the /home partition, otherwise you may have multiple different users, with different settings, trying to use the same exact home folder. This will bring ridiculous confusion and headaches

Also, sharing the SWAP space will work great, provided you do not plan to use "Suspend to Disk" to that same partition. Otherwise, if you suspend one distro to disk, and boot a different distro which tries to activate the swap space as a swap space, it will bring headaches too, because it either won't load the swap space, OR it will erase the suspended image that was there.

You have a reasonably powerful machine, so pretty much any distros should run OK.
My suggestion for you would be a minimal swap space (or a couple of them, if you like) of maybe 512Mb just for the heck of them; you have lots of memory, so you won't likel;y see much swapping anyways.
For each distro, 10-15 Gib is a good starting point for the root partitions. Go with 20 if you think you might install a tonne of stuff, but really, 15 tends to work fine for me.
The /home partition can be much bigger, since all the user settings, downloads, music, videos, etc., will collect in there.

As for "sharing applications", well that cannot work as easily as it may sound, unless the application is installed wholly into the home folder as a standalone, and does not depend on system libraries located elsewhere in the system. Either way, you'd want to make sure the application was properly installed within EACH distro, for it to work properly.

Best of luck with your learning and fooling around

Sasha

It's OK, distrohopping. How do you know what suits you 'til you try it? But don't stop with just Debian/Debian-based distros. There's Mandriva, Fedora. OpenSuse, Arch...what have I forgotten?
Oh yes! And there's Slackware + plus its offshoots.

Hello Pauly and wellcome to LQ,

my experience is that it's possible to use one home-Partition with different distros. But it has disadvantages if you have different versions of the same application, for example firefox. Firefox needs different language-pluggins with every new version.
I'm running Gentoo and Slackware on the same machine with one home-partition and experienced problems because of different versions of fvwm2, The configuration-files are not compatible.
As Swapspace I have one 512MB-partition for both distros, this is enough with 4GB of Ram.

Markus

Adding to what everybody else has already said: You might also consider using LVM. (Logical Volume Manager). LVM allows you a lot more flexibility about what you do with your partitions. LVM allows you to easily add, delete, and resize partitions.

In the past, I used Debian with LVM, and I had a system like so:

500 GB total on one drive

Drive divided into:

LV "debian" (50GB): contained debian root, /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr, etc.

LV "home" (10GB): contained /home

LV "archive" (100GB): contained /archive

LV "scratch" (100GB): contained /scratch

Later on, I wanted to switch to Gentoo. So when I did the partitioning I just reused the old LVM configuration, except that I added a new LV called "gentoo" to install the system/program files to.

This was nice also because the "debian" LV was left untouched, so I can still boot into it if I want to. This was especially comforting because if I messed up the Gentoo installation I still had a working installation and access to all my data.

Side note: I would only mention, contra GrapefruiTgirl's warning, that I used the same home directory and user name switching from Debian to Gentoo, and I had no problems. This was actually better, because it kept all my old application settings, like Firefox bookmarks.

What I do is that I do not keep my data in /home. I use that only to store temporary or working data, then I move everything to my data disk. System, including home is installed on one partition, which I usually give 20-30GB. That is enough for system and temp data I need to store. When I need to reinstall, I just wipe the system, my data stay. And I can have several systems installed and they share my data. All I need to do is make sure that I have the same userid on all of them.

I have used old school Red Hat, Fedora, Mandrake to Mandriva, Slackware, OpenSuse, Kubuntu too, and I found it comes down to your needs at hand.

Mandriva I have always noticed is a good distro to get wet with coming from the Windows world. Its management interfaces kind of have a feel that Windows users will feel comfortable with.

OpenSuse is not a bad distro, I used to use it but switched after Novell signed a BS agreement with Microsoft stating that there was supposedly stolen NT code that M$ has never ever proven to be in Linux, yet still swear today. Novell has traditionally been a friend to Windows, especially after loosing the server OS market to NT. Netware went from being it's own OS to more an environment inside Windows. Now after that, Novell knows they can't screw that up because then they lost their biggest cash cow. Personally I feel if you choose OpenSuse, which by signing that agreement, violates not only the Debian license, it violates the concept of Open Source, and says we all are breaking the law, so why help Microsoft out? I mean heck Bush when in office he helped Gates enough sweeping the court ruling under the carpet totally circumventing the whole Judicial Branch and it's ruling to split M$ up. Why did that happen so easily without stink? Because Bush did it shortly after 9/11 when we were all focused on terrorists here in the US, so M$ wasn't scary anymore. It barely got press he was doing it too.

Slackware is far from a noob distro and takes a bit of hands on work to get everything working right.

Fedora kind of lacks a direction in my opinion. It's development and focus is all over the place, well has been traditionally.

Now Ubuntu or any variants like Kubuntu are great, but all of them minus Kubuntu use PulseAudio. Which the community of developers for it tend to blame the problems Ubuntu has sound wise on the PulseAudio developers and visa versa. This is unlike what other distro do from what I have found. They don't place blame, they don't leave the community to try to fix pulse themselves, they update the packages and just fix the problem.

As you can see there are pros and cons to each distro out there just from my experience. I personally use Kubuntu, but that is because it is really lean and doesn't install unnecessary things like PulseAudio and I think KDE is more polished.

Whatever you choose just remember that if you change your mind as long as you take a couple steps ahead of time, you can switch to another distro no problem. Some will disagree, but for all intense purposes Linux is Linux, find one that makes you happy, but still keep your eyes open to new distros that arise, and others innovating.

as far as I am concerned, that paragraph is all nonsense, and the whole post does nothing to help the OP with the reasonable request for a better partition layout. Just to try to deal with the above para briefly:

Novell signed a BS agreement with Microsoft stating that there was supposedly stolen NT code that M$ has never ever proven to be in Linux
Novell signed an 'interoperability' agreement with MS; I know of know evidence that in doing so Novell agreed to any statement that code had been stolen from MS; please give a reference for that.

Novell has traditionally been a friend to Windows, especially after loosing the server OS market to NT.

A friend? After MS stole Novell's lunch, Novell has made several (often not well executed) attempts to find a revenue stream. One of those was to buy SuSE. As part of that, Novell would like to get an increased share of the corporate space. While to do that they have to be interoperable with the incumbent hegemon, it is quite conceivable that the underlying motivation is the opposite of real friendship.

Personally I feel if you choose OpenSuse, which by signing that agreement, violates not only the Debian license, it violates the concept of Open Source, and says we all are breaking the law, so why help Microsoft out?

Where, how, whaaat? If I choose OpenSUSE I sign an agreement that violates the Debian license?
What is the debian license and how could I be violating it? After all, I didn't sign an agreement.
Or, is OpenSUSE/Novell violating it, is that what you are saying? So, to which debian license (exactly...give a reference to something which is a license) are you alleging that this takes place, and which document (a reference again, please) actually did this violation.
If you mean 'the Debian Social Contract', that is a contract between Debian and its users, so it is difficult how anyone other than Debian, or its users, could be violating that.
which by signing that agreement...it violates the concept of Open Source, and says we all are breaking the law,
OK, if you can try to explain that without mangling up several things together, it would be helpful. Which 'concept of Open Source' is being violated? And which law are we all alleged to be breaking, and what exactly says that we are doing this?

I know that the Novell thing of trying to work closely with MS was hugely controversial, and I can understand that, but, from what I know, it seems that you mis-state the actual facts of the case to make your point, or have access to information that was not made widely known.

I mean heck Bush when in office...
Now you have drifted further than even I am prepared to pursue you; given that this is where it seems that there is no chance that you could be influencing the OP in any positive way, I'm just going to drop the whole Bush thing. Just don't think that's because I liked him, or any of his works.

Vaguely more constructive suggestion for the OP

Assuming that virtualisation and running live CDs don't do it for you, what about the following:
for each installed distro, give it its own / directory (err, really, you don't have a choice there) and when it creates /home within that, create all your files within a directory 'work' or 'documents' or 'zxcvb' or something. The thing is, that for each distro, within /home you set up that name as a link to a common directory under which you store all your own created files, so you have one directory for the tree that contains all your spreadsheets, wp files, downloads.... but when the individual distros create user settings within /home, usually as . files, like, for example, the .kde directory, that works too.

At least in theory, you can run a single swap partition for every distro, but I haven't actually tried that.

I'd forget about a swap partition. With 2GB+, you won't need one unless you intend to hibernate or suspend. But as Sasha said, that can lead to problems with multiple Linuxes, and the time saved in booting is lost in reading and writing all that memory.

They signed the agreement and by using OpenSuse you are saying what they did is right.

Here is what brought the agreement about:

http://www.crn.com/software/19950173...PSKH4ATMY32JVN

If you are going to trash or critique me, do some research! All of my statements are about facts. Like fact, the supposed interoperability agreement you reference was a means for Microsoft to have leverage against Linux, because they agree in it there are patent infringements! That was a big part of the agreement and well publicized. Has your head been in the sand like an ostrich letting the world pass by?

On the note of Bush that is constructive. It shows the influence M$ extended on not only Open Source but also the government who makes and enforces the laws meant to protect US in this country with this! Why would you want to strengthen that using a distro in bed with them?!?!

Oh and another thing, Novell signing that was stupid, but out of fear. This is the same type of case Apple brought against M$ and lost on. And the defense was basically no one claims to have invented the steering wheel.

Another Addition:

That agreement says that M$ will not sue Novell customers using Suse, not that they won't sue free users. Here is Novell's page on it where it clearly says customers. You are not a customer if you download and use it for free. So you see if you fear M$ using Linux even using OpenSuse's download version won't protect you.

http://www.novell.com/linux/microsof...pensource.html

It is written in the answer to question 4.

Interesting use of words, again: about facts, but just wrong about the facts.

What you said previously was that: and I point out that the 'Debian license' seems difficult to relate to this, you change the argument (because you are wrong) and when it is pointed out that your random allegation the we are all breaking the law is wrong you try to change the argument to 'Microsoft to have leverage against Linux', which is a completely different claim.

And, anyway, I wouldn't like to be in your position of arguing, in the interests of not helping Microsoft, that all Linux users are breaking the law; I don't accept that and I don't think that you should accept it either.

If you read the article for which you posted the link (remember that is your choice of article, not mine) and what it actually says is:

What the two have signed is a reciprocal agreement not to sue one another's customers over patents that one another holds. They have not, because they could not, give any rights to stuff that they do not own, and nor does it make any statement about ownership of any other rights and it is important that this be the case.

The '...implicit in the deal was a suggestion...' is an interpretation; it may even be an interpretation that the parties to this agreement would like you to take as a fact, but it would need proof in a court of law that there are specific patents and specific contraventions of those patents for it to become something other than an implication.

Taking it as a fact, without any evidence, is to play in to the hands of Microsoft, and you should not do that. If everyone comes to believe this nonsense put about by Microsoft, they won't have to test their shaky -possibly non-existent - case in court, and you will have made a win for them without them having to do anything. Is this what you want?

(Note also that there are significant doubts whether the Microsoft patents, if they ever get around to telling the rest of the world what they are, would stand up in a patent regime in which software patents are not allowed, which is a significant lump of the world. But, I am sure that Microsoft would like to use the FUD of a threat, and the fact that they have a large legal budget to spend on expensive lawyers, which will outface many potential litigants, rather actually have their claims tested.)

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that it is desirable that Novell feel that they should to use fear uncertainty and doubt to get enterprise customers on board, and I don't even know that they will pull this trick off, but in their battle with the competition, including the biggest player in the market, this is a stratagem that they have chosen to employ. It is just that in your enthusiasm to make the case, you have invented what you want to be 'facts' and consider it to be ostrich-like to want the documented facts rather than your 'improved' version.

You are totally taking my statements out of context and changing things around. What I said was by using Suse or OpenSuse you are agreeing with that whole situation. That if you do use either, you are giving MS more to back their case. If a company has a choice of Red Hat or Suse for example, their legal department is going to dictate to IT in most cases if they run the show, like in some companies, telling them to use Suse as to avoid the possibility of legal action. That is true with a paranoid IT department head, they may make the same choice.

If you remember in my original post when that whole agreement happened I said I dumped OpenSuse off my system so I would not be agreeing with those frivolous claims made by M$. Red Hat in their "manifesto" in regards to the whole situation laid everything out in it and said how they would be no part of it. Even that they would fight M$ to the death. If it was as simple as you make it to sound there would be no reason for them as a company to do that. The reason why they did was because they were privy to more information then we as the general public are, as with most things of this nature.

Novell and Red Hat were approached by M$ legal department who has been known to strong arm and threaten better then the best of them. You are telling me that when Red Hat says they are basically going out the way we all come into this world, kicking and screaming, a weak timid Novell jumps to sign on the line even before considering that doing it did violate the Debian User End License, which they were given an okay on by the Debian development community after the fact, that it was merely a nice little agreement like you first stated?

On the note of testing the patent thing M$ in the US should have no problem when in bed with the US government on so many levels. It is scary, but a lot of those very expensive toys such as the Predator drone, the fire control systems on computer assisted artillery, the software they use to run operations and control troop movement, etc, all are using Windows. Do you honestly think Microsoft can't use that fact to their advantage and say sorry but no more Windows for you?

They managed to do it already. Bush a stout military supporter, when the fact is when he was in the guard never showed for duty is ironic, but not on this subject. He knew with the build up post 9/11, a happy M$ is a good thing for his agenda, especially where Windows runs so much of the military systems. He basically hands them a full pardon after it was proven they were a monopoly and violated several federal laws and FTC regulations. If M$ and Gates can skate on that, patent law suits are not going to be a problem for them.

They have already traditionally used it to kill competition when they had no such thing but all of a sudden do. What they have done and you can research this yourself. A company comes out with something that could make a dent in M$ profit, but they have nothing to counter it or a product even similar. They turn around say they do, files lawsuits, pump more money then the little guy could ever wish to see into legal, file injunction after injunction and drag it out until the other company is toast. There have been quite a few cases of it.

Microsoft is a member of the CableCard association, and as an organization they have flat out stated that they will never allow support for a Linux device, I think that is proof to Microsoft's fear and will pull anything they can tactics to stop Linux proliferation into the market. As is the agreement you make sound like it was such a sweet as a rose smelling type of deal. It was beyond shady.

M$ pulled that whole thing after their DOJ woes were mysteriously gone, and could that be because they had a favorable situation with the administration at the time. The Clinton administration would have saw what that was, a crock, and probably went after them for it. Hmmmmm, like they did for the monopoly they are, and unfair and illegal business tactics they used. In large part that was because of members of our community, the distributions' developers, and others speaking up saying hello you need to check them out.

We were still doing that in a Bush administration and it fell on deaf ears, while they basically get a pardon. Can you see how too convenient this all is.

Do you honestly think that agreement would have happened if under the Clinton administration, with the clue they had? No way in hell would it have. The second it was proposed it would have had them on it saying the truth about it being an unfair business tactic. It only takes one to say yeah there might be a patent infringement or two but we will sign this agreement with you so we can't be sued. It is basically saying that everyone else is too and opens them up to litigation.

Novell by signing is saying if you are not using their distro and paying, where it say it only covers their customers, not free users, that you and I are breaking the law.

I never said anything to the extent that I believe that. In all honesty when it comes to M$ I would rather be a criminal!

Do you not get I am a New Englander born and bred, we don't roll over, just take it, and conform. We did after all start and finish the revolutionary war, the civil war where it was in the heart of Boston the call to arms began, and when Bush told us with Katrina to stay here and not go to help said F you and went anyways. Where do you think Richard Stallman the founder of GNU got his mentality and take on the evil beast spirit? Because of going to MIT and being exposed to who we are as New Englanders.

Speaking of Stallman he was livid when the agreement we are going back and forth over happened. He stopped the revision of Open Source licensing because he wanted to make sure it would not happen again. He had that current version gone over with a fine toothed comb, had any and everything changed that could allow for it again, and has basically come out and swore he would not allow it to happen ever again.

He might be considered by some to be an out there whack job, but he has a clue as to what is what in the software world.

You make it sound like that agreement was so sweet and innocent, if it was then Stallman would not have done what he did, what we should have all done, said wait one minute and did our part to put a stop to it.

Adition:

Another thing, if this supposed interoperability agreement was truly plainly that, then the Novell's Moonlight project would have access to all aspects of the Silverlight standard and technology, so there truly could be that functionality on Linux. Which is something M$ don't want at all and Novell does not have access to all of it. Sure here is Silverlight, where everything gets DRM, and that is one part of the standard M$ said they will not release to Novell on a closed source basis to incorporate or develop for Linux themselves. Yet that is a simple interoperability agreement? If it was, then Moonlight would have DRM.