Installing distros over distros
 

I am running SuSE 7.3 but ave now decided that it would be better to stick with Caledera. Is it possible to just install Caldera over it without reforrmatinfg my linux partition?

Thanks,
Sunil

:newbie:

well, you can start the install, but its best to reformat so no problems arise.. though if you wanted you don't have to reformat the /home directory, but might not overwrite the existing files if you wanted it to or not.
best recommendation though, reformat the partitions, saves you any troubles that might arise.. and it shouldn't take that long during the install process to reformat.

You can have both
 

Sunil,
It's very much possible to have both. All you need is another small partition. You can share the swap between diff distros.

Think about it.

I have SuSE, Redhat, on one machine. I plan to put caldera, mandrake along with others... It's fun.


Ravi

If you've got several different distros, would you have to copy the kernels from each distro onto one partition for LiLo to see them, or can she see kernels on any partition? I know this is fairly basic question, but:

1) I recently tried to install Debian Progeny, and was unsure if the 'new' LiLo (the Progeny installed one) would automatically see the Mandy distro and give an option to boot that (it turns out that it wouldn't install properly anyway, must burn new CD).

2) I am thinking of putting RH7.2 (when I've downloaded it) alongside my M8.1.

What I meant was, getting rid of SuSE and only havig Mandrake. I just wanted to know if I had to rformat or not.

Thanks,
Sunil

:newbie:

and to clarify my first post, everyone seems to get off topic at times, yes, i would recommend to reformat your drive.

Sorry sunilk, saw concorans reply and I sort-of hijacked this thread.

Anyway, since I'm here:

I know that Linux wants its bootable bit (not sure, is this just bootable partition or the kernel image itself?) to be somewhere under the 8Gb marker. If this is the kernel image, could I, for instance:

Install Debian (I'm still trying) onto the last partition on my HD (it starts at something like 30Gb marker, and then to the end, which is 40.1Gb). Boot Mandrake, copy the debian kernel image from /dev/hda14 to the /boot dir on Mandy's system (which is comforatably in the 4Gb marker range), edit my lilo and be able to boot Debian (even though the rest of the Debian system still resides at 30Gb+)?

Sorry for the possibly weird approach to this - I've just had a silly length genetics seminar, which seemed to focus on markers for this, markers for that, and markers for the other, hence I've got markers peppered all through this entry.

well, only with lilo < 21.7, 21.7 is only on rh72 and md80 to my knowledge, nothign stopping you upgrading of course.

Slack8 has a 'good' version of lilo. As for the original question, format and install mandrake.