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Running SuSE 10 on an 80 GB desktop PC, and wish to add Ubuntu to see why it's apparently most popular distro. Install instructions on my disk (from LFX) allow for single OS or dual boot with Windows, but don't seem to refer to allowing two linux systems to co-exist, unless I am exceptionally stupid. I need a clear guide to partitioning and any other advice so as to avoid wiping data, email details etc, etc. Any help much appreciated.
unless you let ubuntu (7.04) install grub to your MBR you will have problems booting, or add the UUIDs to suse's grub along with the rest of ubuntu info...
It is quite possible and very easy to multiple boot distros. I at one point in time had Windows XP, Xandros Deluxe, Mandrivia, and Fedora (this was back when I had a huge hard drive) all on one machine with different partitions set up. I would recommend using GRUB or LILO for your boot manager and as the guy just said make sure you have it installed to the MBR. Distros usually come with some sort of boot manager, I find GRUB to be the easiest.
Thanks for the immediate replies. I realize that I have not given much info about the issue so here is more.
At present the hard drive data is:
Type mount point
/dev/sda1 - 12.2 GB linux native /
/dev/sda2 - 62.2 GB extended
/dev/sda5 - 12.2 GB linux native /home
/dev/sda6 - 784.3 MB linux swap swap
When I run the first few steps of the Ubuntu installer I get to a screen titled 'Prepare disk space' with 4 options:
1 Guided - resize sda5 and use free space; then a scroll bar set to 52% (5.2 GB)
2 Guided - use entire disk; (which I do not want to do)
3 Guided - use largest continuous free space;
4 Manual; selecting this option takes me to the next screen with the above HD data presented in almost the same way:
type mount point size
/dev/sda1 - ext 3 /media/sda1 13168 MB
/dev/sda5 - ext 3 /media/sda5 13160 MB
/dev/sda6 - swap 822 MB
free space 52872 MB and the option to make changes to any entry in the table.
At this point I realise the depth of my ignorance, lose my nerve and press 'Cancel'.
How should I proceed from here?
sda1 is a little larger than it needs to be for your average Linux install, i use a / partition of about half that, one danger of resizing your / would be dataloss to suse,
/dev/sda2 - 62.2 GB extended
sda2 is an extended partition @ 62 gigs, i see 12.2 for /home & 784.3 for swap, what are you doing with the rest besides home & swap?
/dev/sda5 - 12.2 GB linux native /home
/dev/sda6 - 784.3 MB linux swap swap
- - - - -
what i have is hda1 @ 6 gigs for distro #1, and hda2 @ 6 gigs for distro #2, and hda3 @6 gigs for distro #3, and a large /home at the end of the disk, swap is on another harddrive hdb
as you learn Linux better and want to have more than one distro installed i think you will also need to learn to use your disk space more ergonomically...
unless you let ubuntu (7.04) install grub to your MBR you will have problems booting, or add the UUIDs to suse's grub along with the rest of ubuntu info...
UUID = annoying feature
So---let Ubuntu have the mbr--nothing to lose. (If paranoid, first put the SUSE bootloader on a floppy--then you can easily get back to what you had
You can also have Ubuntu put the bootloader on a floppy.
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