Using multiple distro's on one computer
 

I am sure this has been addressed before, but I had some questions about using multiple distro's on one computer. My linux machine has an 80gig HD and a smaller 6gig HD. I will have Slackware 10 for my main distro on 40 gigs of the 80gig drive. Then I wanted a smaller 10 gigs for testing of the latest Fedora Core (Or playing with other distros) and then some free space on the drive incase I wanted to play with SuSe/Knoppix/Gentoo or anything else later on.

At one time I had Slackware 9.1, Fedora Core 1, and Windows XP Pro. On the same computer, FC1 and Windows XP loaded Via the Grub Bootloader, and Slackware 9.1 loaded off of a boot-up disk.

I may or may not have XP on the smaller 6 gig HD, because I will need Swap space, and I don't know if 80gigs will hander three distro's.

I wanted some oppinions, and some assistance of how to go about this. I know that when my dad gets done with my computer he will put XP on the 6 gig HD, so unless I need the 6 gig HD XP will stay on there for those times when I might need it.

80G divided between 3 distros = slightly less than 27G per distro, which would be plenty of space. I'd say go for it, and considering that you have already set up multi-boot systems before, my bet would be that this would be a relatively straightforward exercise for you. In terms of advice or recommendations, I would suggest allocating no more than 256Mg for swap, and to configure all 3 installations to use that one single swap space. Otherwise, use whatever partitioning scheme you prefer. -- J.W.

What I do is I have one hard drive for gentoo and one for slackware.I just shutdown and switch hd,I have both installed but only plug in one at a time,but I don't switch them back and forth very often. I have a old 20 gb that I can use for testing if I want to.I use to have them all connected at on time but this is alot easier for me as I might only switch every few months if at all.

My new processor was ordered today, so I suspect next week my machine will be running again with Linux. I usually partition in the distro install, so I figure I will do that once again. So I will go ahead and keep XP on the smaller HD (only because I need windows XP from time to time) and then intall FC2 (or 3 if I can find it) and Slackware 10, and then have another partion for maybe Gentoo or Knoppix (or something else)

Anyways that was one of my questions you answered J.W. About the swap space, because I was not sure last time I installed Slackware really how big to make the swap partitions.

Thanks for the thoughts!