Can multiboot distros share var, usr, etc. partitions?

Jeff Tenza · 07-25-2005, 05:34 PM

Hi,

I've been reading several posts on this subject over the past day or two. I have a couple of questions and would greatly appreciate some direction.

I think I would like to try installing the following on an 80 GB hard drive:
Windows XP, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, and FreeBSD. I'd also like to set up a web server and maybe an e-mail server. I've never installed linux before but my goal is to learn what I can.

I've been reading about dividing up the partitions into /var, /usr, /usr/local,/swap,.../home and I want to ask what, if anything, I can reuse between OSes. If I install those 5 OSes I mentioned, will I have any space left for my files, including the web server database? I need to designate enough space for the OS-specific applications, correct?...what would be a reasonable amount of space for each? Would I be better off going to Circuit City and buying that 300GB Seagate for $100 I saw?

THANKS
Jeff

gtwilliams · 07-25-2005, 06:03 PM

Well for one a 300 gig HD for 100 is a reasonable purchase even if you aren't planning on installing 5 distros.

I too am curious about this because i want to install Suse onto my win/ubuntu machine.

What i've read is that kernels are set up for specific package management systems, i.e. redhat/fedora run RPM and debian runs DEB - i THINK suse runs RPM too? i don't know what gentoo runs, but unless i'm wrong * good chance because i'm not familiar with those distros*, but you can't install two different package management systems on the same kernel without problems.

anybody think this is right? or am i wrong !

tuxdev · 07-25-2005, 06:39 PM

the kernel is not the problem AFAIK. Doing this will probably make a broken MonoLinux.

cs-cam · 07-25-2005, 07:44 PM

If you share all those directories, where will the difference between distros be? You'll just be booting up with a different kernel, that's it. Best bet is to create a root partition for each distro, one /home partition, one swap partition and one /boot partition. You can easily chuck all your kernel in the same /boot partition so that's cool, sharing swap isn't an issue because you can only boot one distro at a time and sharing /home is good cause then you can use your files between distros, no need to have copies of your MP3 collection all over your hard drive