Install OpenSUSE 32 bit and CentOS 64 bit in Dualboot Mode
 

Hi Experts and Gurus -

Am a newbie to Linux. Please help resolve the issue with installation of OpenSUSE 12.3 (32 bit) and CentOS 6.4 (64 bit) in Dualboot mode.

I have a 4 year old, Lenovo Ideapad Y430. Am successful in installing OpenSUSE 12.3 (32 bit) but at the cost of losing Windows Vista, no regrets though (as I messed up with my partitions). Now while, I tried to install CentOS 6.4 (64 bit), the install DVD is not booting.

I ensured, MD5SUM of the DVD and the source, it looks good. Also checked the boot sequence to have CD / DVD drive as the first boot device.

My intension is to have CentOS 64 bit, as I need to run HDP 2.0 (Hartonworks) which does not run on OpenSUSE. So If centOS can't coexist, am fine with killing OpenSUSE.

I have below questions now,

* Can't 32 bit and 64 bit Linux distros co-exist? Should I have some special set-up in the HD partition?
* As said already, mine is a Lenovo ideapad Y430. It has Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHZ processor. I read, this processor to support 64 bit OS. Can the problem be with my Chipset? If so how do I identify


Any help on this is appreciated. Please let me know if you need any more information from my end.

Am open to any suggestion

Do you have a 64-bit processor the only way to run 64-bit (outside of emulation?)

Yes, I did check if my processor supports 64 bit and it does.

In the Terminal, I issued the following command and got the desired output to show it supports 64 bit

linux-ddof:/ # grep flags /proc/cpuinfo | grep " lm "
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm dtherm
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm dtherm

This output with 'lm' is supposed to be the indication for 64 bit support

Let me know if my understanding on this is wrong.

That's a messy looking command(\output) and the first I found to try as well I did not think to try (grep flags /proc/cpuinfo | grep " lm ") in Fatdog where I just logged out because lscpu did not work and wanted to test in Debian:easier to tell or 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' look in flags for lm :)

The installers normally fail on it's test and report to user. Both cpu and motherboard need to support 64 bit.

"Can't 32 bit and 64 bit Linux distros co-exist" Yes they can exist but if you mean on the same partition then you'd have to use advanced setup.

Might be more simple to boot to a Centos cd just to see if it will boot to some media. From there you should be able to use network to continue install.

Really any 64 bit live cd is a good test also.

well you will have a bit of a problem
Opensuse 12.3 is using grub2
and centOS 6.4 is using grub-0.9 legacy

so
install suse
then install cent BUT - yes in bold
but install grublegacy on the first CentOS partition

something like
/dev/sda1 suse-boot
/dev/sda2 suse /
--- and so on ---
/dev/sda5 cent-boot
/dev/sda6 cent /
---and so on ---

then

in suse's yast gui
under the bootloader
put a check in the " bootloader options" put a check in "probe foreign OS "
that will add cent to suse's bootloader

now when ever you update the centos kerenl you will have to rerun the suse yast bootloader GUI to add the NEW cent boot image to suse



but the http://hortonworks.com/products/hdp-2/#install site dose list the rpm for SELS

a SUSE enterprise Linux Server 11 should be able to be ran on opensuse - maybe

Sorry about the delay in response...

@jefro & @John_VV - I shall be giving a try on both these options over the weekend and let you know the output.

@jamison20000e - Here is the output of lscpu

linux-ddof:~ # lscpu
Architecture: i686
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 2
On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 15
Stepping: 13
CPU MHz: 800.000
BogoMIPS: 3990.34
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 2048K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,1

@ John_VV

Yes, HDP does support RHEL, SELS & CentOS. Out of this, I found only CentOS to be free OS. As am just starting with this, I wanted get a feel of HDP 2.0 before making a decision to pay for the OS.