Multibooting How-To

RodimusProblem · 01-21-2005, 05:53 AM

I've managed to install a total of 6 OSs on this computer. Here's a step by step guide to how I did it.

Step 1: Have your Distros ready
Before you can install a distro you must have it ready-burnt onto a CD.

Step 2: Backup your files
Speaks for itself doesn't it?

Step 3: Installing Windows XP
I bought this computer "off-the-rack" so I don't have a Windows XP CD. Instead I have System Recovery CDs. Same idea though.

The install program wants the drive partitioned into two partitions (drives C:\ and D:\ ). It won't allow another way. I selected the option to give C:\ 10 GBs and the rest of the drive to D:\ .

At this point my partition table looks like this:

/dev/hda1 (Bootable) WinXP 10GB
/dev/hda4 (Extended)
/dev/hda5 NTFS 50 GB

Step 4: Install Knoppix
When running from the LiveCD, I entered knoppix-installer in the root console.
During the install I used cfdisk to delete the /dev/hda4 and /dev/hda5 partitions. I then added /dev/hda2 and /dev/hda3 using some of the free space created when /dev/hda5 was deleted.

Knoppix installed to /dev/hda2, Lilo was set up as boot loader in the MBR.

My partitions now look like this:

/dev/hda1 (Bootable) WinXP 10 GB
/dev/hda2 Ext2 10 GB (Knoppix)
/dev/hda3 SWAP 5 GB
Free Space

Step 5: Install Slackware
I used cfdisk to make a new ext2 partition at /dev/hda5. (hda4 is extended again -- out of primary partitions) and installed Slackware.

Now I reboot into Knoppix, where I log on as Root. After adding an entry in lilo.conf for Slackware I ran lilo to replace Slackware's bootloader.

Then I boot back into Slackware to complete the install.

My partitions now look like this:

/dev/hda1 (Bootable) WinXP 10 GB
/dev/hda2 Ext2 10 GB (Knoppix)
/dev/hda3 SWAP 5 GB
/dev/hda4 Extended
/dev/hda5 Ext2 10 GB (Slackware)
Free Space

Step 6: Install Debian Sarge
I used cfdisk to make a new ext2 partition at /dev/hda6 and installed Debian Sarge.

Now I reboot into Knoppix, where I log on as Root. After adding an entry in lilo.conf for Debian I ran lilo to replace Debian's bootloader.

Then I boot back into Debian to complete the install.

My partitions now look like this:

/dev/hda1 (Bootable) WinXP 10 GB
/dev/hda2 Ext2 10 GB (Knoppix)
/dev/hda3 SWAP 5 GB
/dev/hda4 Extended
/dev/hda5 Ext2 10 GB (Slackware)
/dev/hda6 Ext2 5 GB (Debian)
Free Space

Step 7: Install Red Hat 9
I used Disk Druid to make a new ext2 partition at /dev/hda7 and installed Red Hat.

Now I reboot into Knoppix, where I log on as Root. After adding an entry in lilo.conf for Red Hat I ran lilo to replace Red Hat's bootloader.

Then I boot back into Red Hat to complete the install.

My partitions now look like this:

/dev/hda1 (Bootable) WinXP 10 GB
/dev/hda2 Ext2 10 GB (Knoppix)
/dev/hda3 SWAP 5 GB
/dev/hda4 Extended
/dev/hda5 Ext2 10 GB (Slackware)
/dev/hda6 Ext2 5 GB (Debian)
/dev/hda7 Ext2 10 GB (Red Hat)
Free Space

Step 7: Install Ubuntu
I used cfdisk to make a new ext2 partition at /dev/hda8 and installed Ubuntu.

Now I reboot into Knoppix, where I log on as Root. After adding an entry in lilo.conf for Ubuntu I ran lilo to replace Ubuntu's bootloader.

Then I boot back into Ubuntu to complete the install.

My partitions now look like this:

/dev/hda1 (Bootable) WinXP 10 GB
/dev/hda2 Ext2 10 GB (Knoppix)
/dev/hda3 SWAP 5 GB
/dev/hda4 Extended
/dev/hda5 Ext2 10 GB (Slackware)
/dev/hda6 Ext2 5 GB (Debian)
/dev/hda7 Ext2 10 GB (Red Hat)
/dev/hda8 Ext2 5 GB (Ubuntu)
Free Space

Step 8: Setup remaining space
There isn't enough room for another distro, and since WinXP is a NTFS partition I simply formatted the remaining space into a vfat partition so that all of the Linux distros can pass data to Windows and visa versa.

In the end my partitions are:

/dev/hda1 (Bootable) WinXP 10 GB
/dev/hda2 Ext2 10 GB (Knoppix)
/dev/hda3 SWAP 5 GB
/dev/hda4 Extended
/dev/hda5 Ext2 10 GB (Slackware)
/dev/hda6 Ext2 5 GB (Debian)
/dev/hda7 Ext2 10 GB (Red Hat)
/dev/hda8 Ext2 5 GB (Ubuntu)
/dev/hda9 vfat 2.6 GB

lilo.conf:

Code:

lba32
boot=/dev/hda
bitmap=/usr/share/lilo/nekotmp3.bmp
bmp-colors=14,,6,3,,2
bmp-table=48p,98p,1,15,17
bmp-timer=254p,432p,4,,0
install=bmp
delay=20
prompt
timeout=50
map=/boot/map
vga=791
default="Linux"
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label="Linux"
	root=/dev/hda2
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet"
	read-only
image=/mnt/hda5/boot/vmlinuz-ide-2.4.26
	label="Slackware"
	root=/dev/hda5
	append="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet"
	read-only
image=/mnt/hda6/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27-1-386
	label="DebianSarge"
	root=/dev/hda6
	initrd=/mnt/hda6/boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
	append="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet"
	read-only
image=/mnt/hda7/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8
	label="RedHat9"
	root=/dev/hda7
	initrd=/mnt/hda7/boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img
	append="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet"
	read-only
image=/mnt/hda8/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-3-386
	label="Ubuntu"
	root=/dev/hda8
	initrd=/mnt/hda8/boot/initrd.img-2.6.8.1-3-386
	append="ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce quiet"
	read-only
other=/dev/hda1
	label="WindowsXP"

masand · 01-22-2005, 01:25 PM

quite a good work!!
will surely help many users here

regards

P0ldy · 02-22-2005, 12:52 AM

Hey, I like your partition strategy.

I'm about to make SuSE my main OS with Windows kept around just for gaming (brand new 250GB drive so no potential for data loss). Couple of questions for you:

Why 5GB allotted solely for swap? That seems very excessive. Is that encompassing of all the distros? If you had one or two distros, how large would you make it? I've got a gig of RAM.

I'm thinking about sharing mp3s/etc on a FAT32 partition between XP and SuSE. What benefits are there of using VFAT instead?

You use 10GB roughly per distro; does that account for personal files storage space (/home/) or simply the OS installation + future apps?

Thanks, great thread.

RodimusProblem · 02-22-2005, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Why 5GB allotted solely for swap? That seems very excessive.

It's very excessive for most systems. My RAM chip is defective, and as a result I see a big improvement performance-wise with a swap over 3 GB. Basically swap should be 2x the amount of RAM you have.

Quote:

I'm thinking about sharing mp3s/etc on a FAT32 partition between XP and SuSE. What benefits are there of using VFAT instead?

VFAT and FAT32 are treated as the same thing by Red Hat and probably other distros. Windows calls VFAT FAT32 also, so there's probably no difference.

Quote:

You use 10GB roughly per distro; does that account for personal files storage space (/home/) or simply the OS installation + future apps?

I forgot you could share /home/ directories, and so each distro had its own /home. Some of the distros used 5 GB or more with just the OS install, so 10 GB seemed the safest guess.