[SOLVED] Virtual Machine install Linux on old machine

Harshit_24 · 10-20-2015, 04:52 AM

I am doing some testing with Linux installation, so chose VMware as virtual machine.

Suppose I installed a Linux distro on my VM with 3 partitions i.e. /, /home, swap

Now I want to test different distro on it with just formatting & installing the / partition while keeping other partitions as it is.

Now I would like to know if it is possible in any virtual machine like VMware so that I can install my new distro on already installed distro ?

hortageno · 10-20-2015, 05:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harshit_24

I am doing some testing with Linux installation, so chose VMware as virtual machine.

Suppose I installed a Linux distro on my VM with 3 partitions i.e. /, /home, swap

Now I want to test different distro on it with just formatting & installing the / partition while keeping other partitions as it is.

Now I would like to know if it is possible in any virtual machine like VMware so that I can install my new distro on already installed distro ?

If I understood your question, then yes. A VM behaves like any other physical machine in this regard. If the installer of the distro supports it, then you just tell it to "use partition /dev/sdX as home and don't format". The only thing you need to be aware of is that RH based distros start with uid 500 IIRC and Debeian based ones with 1000 for normal users. So you might need to change the owner of /home/user afterwards if you want to reuse it.

Harshit_24 · 10-20-2015, 05:49 AM

@hortageno, I don't know how to install another distro on that particular already installed VM distro. Ex: Currently I have CentOS installed on VM, now on the installation, I want to change it to Debian with only / partition while keeping /home & swap safe.

I don't know how to provide the path of Debian to the installed CentOS distro.

hortageno · 10-20-2015, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harshit_24

@hortageno, I don't know how to install another distro on that particular already installed VM distro. Ex: Currently I have CentOS installed on VM, now on the installation, I want to change it to Debian with only / partition while keeping /home & swap safe.

I don't know how to provide the path of Debian to the installed CentOS distro.

I'm not familiar with VMWare, but in VirtualBox you assign an ISO or the physical CD drive to the VM's CD drive and boot from that. This link might help you.

http://www.isunshare.com/blog/how-to...so-image-file/

Harshit_24 · 10-20-2015, 06:48 AM

Thanks @hortageno, that's what I wanted!!