So I have an 80GB drive laying about and I thought to myself "You should install several versions of linux in order to get used to all of the major varients".

The problem is I'm not quite sure how to go about this task. It seems to me like the install for BSD, OpenSolaris, Debian, etc might not play well together (though for all I know they may).

So here is my question. I wish to have up to 6 *nux varients on this disk drive. I am trying to figure out is how to do this. I know that I'll need some sort of boot manager that will allow me to select a partition/distro/something, but I'm not sure if there are any out there that are free and will allow several distros to play together all at once.

Ideally I'd like to know what program you recommend *and* how it configured in general terms, either a short explannation or a link to a intro level how-to doc. All I'm asking for in an explanation right now is when do I stall this program compared to the distros? Do I need a seperate partition for the boot manager or will it be part of one of the linux distros? I don't think I need the flags right now (but if I can't figure out the documentation I may start a new thread for just such an emergancy)

See
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showt...hreadid=143973
about 100 distros booting on one system

n/m misread your question

actually this is helpful. Don't get me wrong I'd still love to see more options as well as seeing what order things were done to allow that system to work, but this is a good start. Thank you

I only use Linux distros in a multi-boot scenario, no BSD or Solaris, but I use GRUB as my boot loader. Seems to work well for me. The GRUB manual can be found here.
Yes, it's free and, if you're using Linux right now, might already be installed.

I'm sure the way I do it isn't the best and the guru's at LQ can browbeat and correct me. I have one 500MB partition (hda1) for my /boot partition. When I install a new distro, I choose not to install the boot loader. Create a sub-directory in /boot (e.g., /boot/debian) and move the boot directory from the new install. Then I edit the grub.conf (menu.lst) file to add my new distro as an option. Reboot, cross my fingers, and select the new distro. Problems now and then? Yeah, but usually associated with my grub.conf edit.

What's the big difference between GRUB and Lilo? I've never known anything other than Lilo, but why is there now this - sort of - shift and emphasis put on GRUB?