Dual booting 2 Linux installations

veeruk101 · 05-15-2012, 11:04 AM

I have a laptop that came preinstalled with Windows 7, so I shrunk the partition and dual booted with Linux (Fedora 17 beta). That worked well.

Now I'd like to replace Windows 7 with Fedora 16 (so that I have Fedora 17 beta and Fedora 16 dual booted), but I'm not sure how to do this, because I have to use the "Create Custom Layout" option in the Linux installation. When dual booting with Fedora 17 beta, I was able to use the "Use Free Space" option. Now there is no free space because Windows 7 and Fedora 17 beta use up all the free space. I also can't use "Use All Space", "Replace Existing Linux System", and "Shrink Current System" options because they're not what I want.

So in the "Create Custom Layout" option, I'm confused. Here's what the partition table looks like right now. How should I set it up so that I can install Linux on top of where Windows is currently installed?

Code:

LVM Volume Groups
vg_myvg    345696
--lv_swap  9920   swap
--lv_home  284576 ext4
--lv_root  51200  ext4
Hard Drives
sda
--sda1     101    vfat
--Free     2
--sda2     20000  ntfs
--sda3     349076 ntfs
--sda4     346223 Extended
----sda5   500    ext4
----sda6   345721 vg_myvg    physical volume (LVM)

Should I touch sda1, Free, sda2 (which I think is some Windows or Dell partition, not sure if I should get rid of it in case I need to install Windows again someday), or sda3 (which is where Windows is actually installed I think).

Currently, sda6 is encrypted, and I'd also like to use encryption for where I'll be installing Fedora 16. I'm confused as to how to go about setting everything up. I've backed everything up, could someone please help me explain how to create a custom layout to get a dual booted system with 2 Linux installation? Thanks.

zXi · 05-15-2012, 12:52 PM

You might want to delete the windows partition.

djsoundfx · 05-15-2012, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zXi

You might want to delete the windows partition.

You NEED to delete the windows partition. You basically can't install linux on to NTFS. So you need to delete sda2(which appears to be windows boot partition) and sda3 (windows file system), then once they're in the free space you need to create your swap space and your ext(linux filesystem) partitions [or if you want to try and do it automatically do the "use free space" option]. Also, do you know what you're using that extended partition for? That also may need to be altered.

Also, anytime you're messing with a partition table TAKE A BACKUP. I recommend clonezilla so you can have a baremetal (oops I destroyed everything) kind of restore, alternatively you could make a tarball of the important stuff on your Fedora 17 and make sure you've got everything you care about off of your windows partition too!

lithos · 05-15-2012, 02:11 PM

Why don't you just run Fedora 17 and start "gparted" and then delete the windows partition to get free space where you will install F16.

veeruk101 · 05-15-2012, 04:39 PM

Quote:

You NEED to delete the windows partition. You basically can't install linux on to NTFS. So you need to delete sda2(which appears to be windows boot partition) and sda3 (windows file system), then once they're in the free space you need to create your swap space and your ext(linux filesystem) partitions [or if you want to try and do it automatically do the "use free space" option]. Also, do you know what you're using that extended partition for? That also may need to be altered.

If I delete sda3 the partition table says 'Free' indicating that it is now free space, but I'm not sure how to actually use the "Use Free Space" option. Maybe save the partition table, exit the installation, restart the system, then run the installation with "Use Free Space"...seems clunky, but I'll try it...

I don't think sda2 is the Windows boot partition (as it is 20GB), I think it's some kind of Microsoft or Dell recovery partition perhaps? So I'm not so sure about whether it's smart to get rid of it.

By the way, what is sda1 partition used for? And should I delete that as well?

What do you mean about the extended partition? When I installed Fedora 17 using the "Use Free Space" option, these were the default settings. How should I alter it? And if I create free space to use for installing Fedora 16, should I create it as a primary partition or extended partition (because I don't remember seeing an option to create an extended partition)? Wow I'm so confused about all this.

Quote:

Why don't you just run Fedora 17 and start "gparted" and then delete the windows partition to get free space where you will install F16.

I'll look into this option also, but still not sure should I delete sda1 and sda2 also or just sda3?

djsoundfx · 05-16-2012, 05:55 PM

Okay, your best bet is definitely to boot your existing F17 and run gparted. This will also allow you to check and see definitively what partitions F17 via the mount command.

You can then safely delete the sda1(windows boot partition), sda2(Probably Recovery),sda3(Win7 FS), then I would mount (if its not already) and check what's on sda4 just to be safe. You could of course under F17 mount each partition and see what's on them before you delete them. Using gparted under F17 should also prevent you from doing too much damage to that existing install. You will then have plenty of free space to autoconfigure or do some reading on Google about how to manually setup the partitions if you want more control.