installation of multible distros

steelrose · 02-19-2002, 09:55 AM

ca i install multiple linux distributions on different partitions and choose which one to load from lilo?

Thymox · 02-19-2002, 09:59 AM

Yes.

I currently have Lilo booting Mandy, Slack & RH.

I did it by installing the new distro, but not installing their bootloader. Rebooting to Mandy, mounting the new distro's partition somewhere, copying their kernal image to /boot, editing Lilo.conf file to include the right options, running lilo, rebooting. Lo-and-behold, I had a Lilo menu showing the new distro.

steelrose · 02-20-2002, 01:30 AM

thanx my friend.with your info i will try to install suse,mandyand caldera.i want to try all the distros in order to buy the best for me

sirvodka · 02-20-2002, 01:43 PM

Thymox,

I'm thinking of doing the same with RH, Mandrake, and Suse. When you are loading the additional distros do you create just 1 partition for each additional distro? Is that the root partition? Also being a newbie I'm unsure what you mean by "mounting the new distro's partition somewhere" and "editing Lilo.conf file to include the right options". Can you be more specific.

Thanks,

Steve

Thymox · 02-21-2002, 09:06 AM

You can create 1 partition for each additional new distro. I run Mandy as my main Linux distro, and I've split this across several partitions, so my harddisk is as follows (almost):

/dev/hda1 = Windows' C
/dev/hda5 = Windows' D
/dev/hda6 = Mandy's /boot
/dev/hda7 = Linux's SWAP, can be used by any Linux distro
/dev/hda8 = Mandy's /
/dev/hda9 = Mandy's /home
/dev/hda10 = Mandy's /root
/dev/hda11 = Mandy's /usr
/dev/hda12 = Windows' E
/dev/hda13 = Slack's /
/dev/hda14 = RH's /

I originally installed Mandy, so when I installed RH I didn't install the bootloader; rebooted into Mandy, typed mount /dev/hda14 /mnt/rh (of course, I had already created the directory /mnt/rh: you cannot mount into places that do not already exist); then copied the file vmlinuz from RH's / partition (cp /mnt/rh/vmlinuz /boot/rhkimage); unmount the RH partition (umount /mnt/rh); edited my /etc/lilo.conf file to include the following:

label=RedHat
image=/boot/rhkimage

saved the file and typed lilo. When I rebooted, I was given the option of booting Windows, Mandy and RH.

The concept of mounting is often confusing to newbs (it was for me), so there is plenty on this website about the matter.

Your distro thing says 'Not sure yet' - I use Mandy and can definetely vouch for its newbie-friendlyness, but I hear that SuSe is also very good.