I want Windoze and Ubuntu 10.10 on my drive, I already have Fedora 11 installed. My question is, if I install Ubuntu, then will it recognise both XP and Fedora 11, and add them to the boot menu? Isn't this quite dangerous and problematic, since, I think Fedora creates 3 or 4 partitions for itself, some of which are LVM - will Ubuntu recognise that? And do the needful?


Thx.

Someone else might have better insight on whether Fedora creates LVM partitions or if that should pose an issue at all for Ubuntu--I suspect not--but the limit on partitions is high enough that you needn't worry about having too many.

Also, every Linux distribution I've used in a multiboot scenario recognized Windows immediately and offered to cohabitate in grub or lilo. Some of the more user-friendly installations even added the WinX entry automagically. Windows has not been *nearly* as consistent in that regard. Installing Windows first helps things go more smoothly.

I don't think Fedora creates LVM partitions by default, I am not sure though because I always customaize partitions while installing.
Installing Windows after any linux distro will delete the GRUB and replace it with windows bootloader, you'll have to reinstall the GRUB then. Thats why its always recomended to install windows first and the linux.

Oops, I meant to mention that.
:-(

Windows XP seems to recognize the other operating systems all right, but having to reinstall grub is discouraging. I think part of me was thinking of Win98...

Not really. Most distributions have a recovery modus on the install CD/DVD, openSuSE even an entry dedicated to resolving boot problems.

At the good old times of NT 4.0 you had to extract the MBR of the windows-installation to a file on C:\ and handle that to GRUB. Is that not anymore the case? (I dunno, I don't use win anymore).

Yes yes, I KNOW that installing 'doze will kill the MBR - My plan is: right now, I have Fedora 11 installed, so I want to delete the current 'doze partition, and reinstall it with a smaller size partition (I have a virus on it), and THEN install Ubuntu. Ubuntu's bootloader should recognise XP, but I'm just worried about whether it'll recognise Fedora 11 or not.
If it doesn't, what do I have to do?

Make sure ubuntu's GRUB can read from a LVM volume, or verify that your fedora kernel and initrd reside on a non LVM partition. If a direct boot is impossible (I don't see how that could be) you can also chainload the fedora GRUB and start your fedora from there.

How?







I *think* I have a /boot - that should be non-LVM, right?

By the way, I have no idea what LVM is...







Sorry - what is "chainload"? And how do I do it?



Thanks a lot.

You could avoid reinstalling by running av from live-cd.
Hiren's bcd has avira inside miniwinsxp.

Follow this: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ectory-837603/

Umph .

Search in the ubuntu fora and read about GRUB2:
http://ubuntuforums.org/printthread.php?t=1195275
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...to_threadtools
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub-2.html

Not automatically, no. Look for a /boot entry in the file /etc/fstab. Then do a fdisk -l (that is a small -L) and check the partition type.

The Logical Volume Manager. Let me google that for you :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical...er_%28Linux%29
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc...O.html#lvm2faq

Chainloading is an ability of GRUB to load another boot loader (instead of an operating system). Your new ubuntu GRUB would thus load the old fedora GRUB.

You do realize that the current fedora version stands at 14, don't you...

Even if Ubuntu doesn't recognize Fedora, as long as Ubuntu boots and you know location of root you can mount using Ubuntu's disk utility.

After mounting
run
"os-prober"
then run
"update-grub"

Attached Thumbnails

 

So - how do I pull it off?


Yeah, I just don't *neeed* anything newer - I've never even used ALL the programs that came with 11, so I don't see the point of upgrading. And besides, I pay for my net by the MB, I'm not going to download 4 gigs or whatever.
Thanks for your help.

I am assuming you use GRUB 2. That notwithstanding I'll post some links for the "old" GRUB so you can better understand the basic concept. First the new ones:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
http://linuxers.org/howto/how-config...ub2-ubuntu-910

Here older entries:

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/
http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/grub/grub.htm

Just search in them for "chainload" and get a basic understanding and a hold of the syntax.

I'm already convinced .