Installing more than one LInux Distro
I installed Fedora Core 2 on my hard drive on one large partition however I would like to now install different Distrobutions at the same time. I was wondering if someone could help me by giving me a step-by-step explanation of partitioning the hard drive and later editing the GRUB boot setup so that the diff Distros appear
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assuming you have enough space (and that you've not committed entire space to fedora) you can run
#fdisk /dev/hdX X-stands for your harddrive select a primary or extended partition. Most probably you'll have to select an extended partition, this could be the case if you've followed default fedora installation (/boot, swap and / partitions). Select the extended partition to cover the entire drive. Once you've done that, you can create required partition inside the extended partition. Once you've created a necessary partition inside the extended partition, you can just go ahead and install your distro. Installation will take care of filesystem. Good luck! Tux, |
sorry if this is a dumb question but I do not seem to have a program/script called fdisk... and just for clarification. I am making a partition inside of a partition and could install windows or any linux distro onto this partition?
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No its not a dumb question. First, you will have to be root in order to run fdisk. Second, fdisk program must not be in your path, meaning your shell doesn't search in the directory where this programs is most usually located.
try # su - enter your password #/usr/sbin fdisk /dev/hdX I would also suggest you read up on fdisk since this program can alter your disk for bad if you are not careful. Quote:
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seems that first of all you need a partition handler : type ' parted 'in google.....
you will need to shrink your large part. to make space for the others.... egag |
it would be worthwhile if you tell us how much space do you have on the disk.
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fdisk not always needed
Depending on the distro, you may not need to use fdisk. You can insert your new distro CD and boot off it. It should ask if you want to create a new partition to install on or select an existing partition. Just be aware of your existing paritions (probably something like /dev/hda1 for windoze, /dev/hda2 for linux #1) to not clobber. Otherwise, IF you did the fdisk command ahead of time, you would know the name of the new one to select. I've gone out as far as /dev/hda13 with new Linux distros.
Clear as mud? The only gotcha to installing a second Linux partition is making your lilo or grub bootloader aware of both linux partitions and kernel locations. All distros are careful about detecting a windoze partition, but not usually good with other Linuxes. If you select lilo bootloader, I can give details. Someone else would have to describe how to do the same with grub. Erin |
i have 89 GB free on /dev/sda2
I think my computer refers to the partitions as sda1 and sda2 instead of hda1 and hda2, does that make sense? and how do I know if a partition is an extended partition? |
#fdisk -l (lowercase L) should give you the partition info or you can try
# cat /proc/partitions (don't know if thats right but you may try). I dont use anything other than fdisk so no idea. You can also try #man parted for more info on parted. Its a program like fdisk. /dev/sda2 might mean you have a scsi-hard drive or you're using scsi-emulation. Correct me if i'm wrong. Tux, |
root@ttyp1[sbin]# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120000000000 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14589 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux /dev/hda2 14 14335 115041465 83 Linux /dev/hda3 14336 14589 2040255 82 Linux swap this is how far i have gotten :P, cant you tell im a :newbie: lol how would i shrink /dev/hda2 ? |
If you have partition magic, use that to resize partition. If you dont have it, take a look at parted
# man parted parted's man page is easy to follow and would let you resize. Depending on your RAM, you wont need such a big swap partition but thats another story. Also I would suggest you create a home partition so that you can safely house all your important files. Dont forget to backup before you resize. |
parted doesnt seem to be working!!!!
this is what i tried (parted) print Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.000-114440.917 megabytes Disk label type: msdos Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags 1 0.031 101.975 primary ext3 boot 2 101.975 112447.155 primary ext3 3 112447.156 114439.592 primary linux-swap (parted) resize 2 Start? [101.9751]? End? [112447.1553]? 60000 Error: Filesystem has incompatible feature enabled what incompatible feature is this? and how can i disable it? |
if you dont have too much on fedora i.e. you've recently installed and want to avoid all the stuff described till now, you can also reinstall fedora by manually partitioning and selecting only required space for root directory
my configuration is here for reference /dev/hdb1 - 100 mb /boot /dev/hdb2 - 512 mb swap /dev/hdb3 - 15 GB fedora /dev/hdb5 - 15 GB slackware /dev/hdb6 - 12 gb vfat still have free space left. I've installed everything in fedora and still it only covers 40% of space. the entire harddrive is 80 gb. |
problem is I have been using Fedora for a while and I dont have a way to back up the entire hard drive!
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this might explain a bit about your problem.
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedor.../msg05154.html If you are using the default installation of fedora i.e you havent installed programs other than your fedora installation, you just have to backup any work files or text files you feel are important. As far as the error is concerned, its something in parted which i am unaware of. |
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