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Old 08-09-2015, 10:29 PM   #1
MrCanadianMenace
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Question Need a guide for installing Ubuntu, openSUSE and CentOS on one hard drive


Hi all,

I'm a newb with Linux and have been trying to follow the edX Linux Foundation course to learn the basics but have been having difficulties trying to install all of the used distros. The distros used are Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and CentOS. I have been trying to partition these systems on to one hard drive but have been unsuccessful so far and would very much appreciate a detailed walkthrough for how to setup these three distributions onto one hard drive or being redirected to where I can find a guide to do so. Thanks a bunch!
 
Old 08-09-2015, 11:00 PM   #2
syg00
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Welcome.
Simple question, no simple answer. This might be a situation where it is better just to install one system (say Ubuntu or OenSUSE - let it default on disk space), then use a VM system like virtualbox to install the other 2 as guests. That way you get emulated disk, network whatever all supported. VBox is well supported and documented.

Searching on "manual partitioning ubuntu install" got a few good looking guides - make sure you pick a current one, not too old. Same applies for the others as well - especially if you are using CentOS 7.
To help further we need a lot more info - BIOS or UEFI firmware on the machine ?. MBR or gpt disk ?. How many partitions already - is Windows on the system ?.
 
Old 08-10-2015, 01:47 PM   #3
fatmac
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Welcome aboard.

(As mentioned above, more info needed.)
 
Old 08-10-2015, 05:23 PM   #4
John VV
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all 3 on ONE drive

some advice
buy a second drive

cent and suse can be on one and even share a DATA partition ( if you set the default id for root to 500( first user 501 ) and NOT 1000 )

suse's grub2 can boot Cent just fine

mixing Ubuntu's odd things in to this ???

i would put ubuntu on it's own drive ( if possible)




I can NOT imagen that a "edX" class will want ALL 3 installed AT THE SAME TIME


while Cent and SUSE are rpm based
SUSE dose things VERY!!!! differently than ALL!!! other rpm based distros

as in you can NOT use a cent guide for suse nor a suse guide for Cent

BUT you can use a RHEL , CentOS , or ScientificLinux on each other and some what on fedora

but you can not use suse guides for anything but suse

Last edited by John VV; 08-10-2015 at 05:31 PM.
 
Old 08-10-2015, 05:30 PM   #5
Timothy Miller
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If you're using UEFI, IMO makes it easier. 250 MB fat32 partition shared as /boot/efi on all 3 (/dev/sda1). ~25 GB / partition each(/dev/sda 2/3/4). Single swap partition of ~2x ram (depending on how much ram you have)(/dev/sda5). Huge /home drive, can even share it between the OS's if you want (/dev/sda6).

Each would install their own EFI entry, just make the one default that you like the best in your firmware, grub-efi should automatically detect each of the installed OS's, and add each to the bootloader in order to choose which to boot. Then just make sure to edit each OS's /etc/fstab so that they don't touch another OS's / partition.

The biggest problem, IMO, if you share a home drive would be old versions of software in CentOS compared to Ubuntu and OpenSuse.

I've done it in MBR also, but I think UEFI is way easier.
 
Old 08-10-2015, 09:48 PM   #6
John VV
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there is no way you can share a SINGLE /home partition with all 3

you will NEED to have 3 /home partitions
one for each OS

or put the /home partition on / and use LVM for all 3
 
Old 08-10-2015, 10:19 PM   #7
Timothy Miller
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Done it before with OpenSuse, Kubuntu and Debian. No issues if they all use relatively similar version of the same software. It only gets hairy if one uses really OLD versions (in this case CentOS) of the software, or conflicting versions of software.
 
Old 08-11-2015, 10:10 PM   #8
MrCanadianMenace
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Oh wow, I'm really impressed with how quickly I go responses So this setup would actually be for a new computer I'm putting together. I'm going to have two separate hard drives, one will have windows and the other will be dedicated to my Linux partitions. I'm not sure what kind of firmware is on this machine yet, but I'll return with an update post as soon as I can grab the specs on the parts I have ordered for the computer.
 
Old 08-11-2015, 11:28 PM   #9
Timothy Miller
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If it's a new machine, it'll definitely support UEFI, and most likely support "legacy" mode. The big thing for getting Linux to work well, is to have it 100 one way or another. Some firmwares support "hybrid" mode, that will function as UEFI, BUT allow for MBR drives, which usually will throw linux installers for a loop and cause them to not install the UEFI bootloaders. So make sure you either are pure UEFI, or pure legacy mode.
 
Old 08-15-2015, 12:12 PM   #10
MrCanadianMenace
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Sorry about this late reply, been busy with work. I haven't setup the computer yet so I don't know how to check the firmware. I'm using two Western Digital Blue WD10EZEX hard drives if that helps.
 
Old 08-15-2015, 12:33 PM   #11
jkirchner
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John VV View Post
I can NOT imagen that a "edX" class will want ALL 3 installed AT THE SAME TIME
It doesn't ask for all three. It gives examples of how to do the same tasks under each of those but there is no reason to have all three installed.

OP, you do not need all three installed. I took the course with Ubuntu installed and all is just fine. The course is just set up so a student can see all three distro's methods. I would pick the one of the three you like best and go with it.

If you ultimately was to use the pc/installation for multimedia and/or gaming you may wish to stick with Ubuntu or openSuse for that.
 
  


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