Hi. I have been using linux for about a month now and I am starting to get the hang of it, though i'm still definately a newb. I still need windows for one single program but otherwise i've made the jump.

I am currently pretty settled on ubuntu 9.04 jaunty, but I also have puppylinux on a pen drive (wow how fast is that!?), and virtual machines running PCLOS and OpenGEU, to test them out.

My 'problem' is that I want to continue to try out various different distros in future, but I am not really keen on virtualisation, which has drawbacks which skew my opinion of the new distros I am testing out (for example I had loads of probs getting OpenGEU to work in Virtualbox, but it worked fine with the live CD).

So my ideal setup would be multiple distros (maybe 5 or 6, including win7) on one HDD, with a 'central' shared area (file? partition?) from where the different linux distros could access all my bulky, personal files (music/paperwork/photos etc). I could then delete/ install distros as I liked, while keeping all personal data untouched. As I understand it this is possible, as the distros/OS's themselves take up little room on the HDD anyway, and grub could be used to choose between them all on startup.

So, is this possible? If so could someone give me a basic step-by-step guide please.

Many thanks in advance

Chris

PS I have one HDD (250GB) in my notebook.

You pretty much answered your own question here, a step by step guide would be too long (there is many guide on google for that) but basically you (first) need to partition your drive for each distros you will eventually install in ext3 filesystem and keep one partition in ntfs for your data files, that partition can later be mounted automatically onto all your distro.
Its all pretty easy to do, the tricky part is that (you will) eventually mess up your grub, but that is part of the learning process.
One advise is too practice installing multiple distro on a spare computer first.

That is pretty much possible. You can ask grub to boot as many distributions you want. It is just the matter of configuring grub if it does not detect all the distributions.
But instead of installing everything on the drive, it would be a good idea to try the distributions on the Live media first and if you like then install. Else you can just remove the media and put another one and keep trying. If you do not intend to spend on the media you can use Unetbootin to make your usb stick bootable.
On keeping your personal data, you can keep the data on any windows drive and mount the drive on linux. You can also create a partition in Linux and format it as windows.

Cheers guys. More questions i'm afraid!

1) ANSWERED Does the shared folder for personal data have to be ntfs then? Thanks pixellany

2) ANSWERED I have no idea how to fiddle with grub, i have only installed linux after a fresh (tiny)win7 installation before, and grub automatically found both OS's. Can anyone recommend a good tutorial on configuring grub? Thanks pixellany

3) SOLVED I currently have my ubuntu set up really nice, but it took me a fair while to sort out a few annoying issues to get it to this state (xorg issues, sound issues etc). Is there a way that I can save all my ubuntu 'settings' so that my future fresh ubuntu installation can be configured to it's current state? SOLUTION FOUND

4) How will I work the primary/ logical partitions. Will it be: ..?

1 NTFS (tinyWin7) Primary
2 NTFS (Personal Files) Primary
3 Ext3 (Ubuntu) Primary
4 Ext3 (PCLOS) Logical
5 Ext3 (OpenGEU) Logical
6 Ext3 (Puppy) Logical


Thanks again.


PS. I realise there are posts on all these types of things elsewhere, but this is a big project for me, and if people are willing to help out with a bit of case-specific advice then it is greatly appreciated!

Shared data can be NTFS--or Linux. Using ext3, for example, you can use the ext2fsd driver for Windows to access the data. I prefer keeping shared data in a Linux filesystem since there is better control over permissions.

The "booting" link below might be useful in setting up GRUB. (There is a link to the GRUB manual). Basically you have to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst

well well
a kindred spirit

Here is my current, though muddled, Hard drive layout

/dev/sda has over 25 different distros on it right now
note that most are "frugal persistent"
as from USB.
So, I install any Ubuntu/debian/slack to a partition, then hand-install
any frugals I might be testing/making
heres a pic of sda6; which has Ultimate Edition-2.3(9.04)
and also has 3 puppies; grml-magix, pmagic and testing stuff
http://multidistro.com/distros/ubuntu-based/sda6.png

and sdb2; I made this to mimic booting off USB
it is a fat32 partition that has frugal installs of
KNOPPIX-6.2
Phalanx-9.04 (note the phalanx-rw)
Slax-6.1.2
Puppy-4.3.1
Pmagic-4.6
Tinycore-2.5
pic here
http://multidistro.com/distros/ubuntu-based/usbhd.png

I installed syslinux to the partiion and boot it via Plop
bootmanager

so, you can put many systems within systems

Cheers linus72, but that is just confusing me to be honest! I do notice though that you seem to experience the same phenomenon as me - random numbering of partitions! I currently have sda1, sda5 and sda6. What happened to sda's 2-4 is a mystery to me..

The primary partitions are numbered 1-4. In your case, there will be an "extended" partition---probably #2. This then links to the "logical" partitions, which always start with #4. To see the whole picture, run "fdisk -l" as root.

Linux can use logical partitions in the same way as primaries. Windows has to be on a primary--and is best on #1.

roshichris,

Mark the opinions of Pixellany and Linus72, their information are very important. Yet if you are a bit confused let me say a little-- (longer)--

a) Understand that generally (the one's we use) there are ONLY four (4) AVAILABLE PRIMARY partitions: 1, 2, 3, 4. This fourth (primary partition #4) is the one to house (accommodate) ALL LOGICAL partitions you subsequently make. NOTE: When creating this 4th partition ALL REMAINING & available disk spaces MUST be consumed for it. (otherwise that space will remain unusable until again you will resize or change the 4th partition which today could matter hours to wait by the giant sizes of HDDs we have.) When you examine or view your hdd through any querying means, partition #4 is sometimes invisible, only the logical partitions are enumerated, so don't worry if you have 5 & 6 without 4, it is there, only that it has no label though it contains your 5 & 6.

b) If I am to work out your hard drive preparations I'd do it this way:
Hard drive: (hd)
Primary 1 -- 3% -Weakling Duck 7
Primary 2 -- 3% -(Reserve for future use)
Primary 3 -- 3% -(Reserve for future use)
Primary 4 -- 91% -- Sub-divided into logical as ff:
-- Logical A -- 3% -Linux ext3 (distro 1)
-- Logical B -- 3% -Linux ext3 (distro 2)
-- Logical C -- 3% -Linux ext3 (distro 3)
-- Logical D -- 3% -Linux ext3 (distro 4)
-- Logical E -- 3% -Linux ext3 (distro 5)
-- Logical F -- 3% -Linux ext3 (distro 6)
-- Logical G -- 1% -Linux Swap Format
-- Logical H -- ntfs format --All Remaining Space for Data

Primary partition 2 & 3 are versatile drives (it can house either Weakling OS or Linux OS) in case you decide, or it can house your further OS/Distro or Solaris experimentations in the future.

With grub you only need to install it once anywhere along the 1st-6th logical drive holding a linux system. Be sure to install grub into the MBR for it to have control in all booting sessions including chainloading a sickly duck sitting at primary 1. To edify yourself about grub there is a good tutorial here, just give few minutes of reading it.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

malekmustaq - Thank you for probably the best, most helpful response I have ever received on any linux/ computer forum I have ever used.

Seriously, that is exactly what I wanted to know, all set out very clearly and concisely. Big up malekmustaq! and thanks pixellany too!

So, all my questions answered in one day, brilliant. I better give it a go then..

Just thought i'd say thanks, i did it no problem. Well I had a few issues with GRUB as predected, but I found a very useful tool in PCLOS whichscans for OS's and automatically adds them to the GRUB menu. Very helpful. I even managed to add a frugal Puppy! (See attached).

So thanks again

Attached Thumbnails

 

roshichris,

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