Hello!

My home computer (desktop) has winxp and Debian Lenny installed on a sata HD. Grub is the bootloader and resides in MBR.

Now, I would like to install Slackware 64 on my second sata HD to give it a try (I've already used Slackware 12.1 but 32 bits version).

What should I do to install Slackware 64 on the second hard disk and then add it to my Grub bootloader keeping my system working properly and being able to choose to boot into winxp; debian and slackware 64? What would you recommend?

Thanks in advance,
Glore2002.-

Whatever you do do not install Slackware64 with an ext4 filesystem as your installation with grub will be unable to boot it. When you get to the bit to install lilo, ignore it. Then just edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst to add a stanza. Mine is like this Hope this helps.

samac

Thanks for your reply samac!

So, I will choose ext3 as the filesystem and will create three partitions on my second HD:

/
/SWAP
/home

Once I did this, I will boot into Debian and modify Grub to add Slackware as a new stanza.

So. What should I do to get the HD info to point at where slackware is installed? fdisk -l?

Thanks again
Glore2002.-

It will probably be sdb1 and if you only use one system at a time you could share lenny's swap partition.

samac

I've a settings for Slackware 12.2 and cannot see the initrd.gz file under /boot. So I end up using the huge kernel image.
Could you please tell me, where and how I can get the initrd.gz file.

I dual boot Fedora 11 and Slackware 12.2 from GRUB.
Thank you.

You only need an initrd.gz if you are using the generic kernel rather than the huge kernel (it is expected that you change to the generic kernel after installation). You need to read README.initrd in the root directory of your installation cd, the entire process is discussed there.

samac

I've found it easier to let Slackware install lilo in the partition I have Slackware installed. Then, I just add a

title Slackware
chainloader(hdx,y)+1

to grub's menu.lst file, where x and y are the hard-drive and partition identifiers. That way, when and if I upgrade the kernel in Slackware, I don't need to re-edit the menu.lst file in Grub.

At least, it works for me. I dual boot Ubuntu and Slackware.

Thank you samac, I'll definitely look into it.

If your root partition is the 1st partition on the 2nd drive then something like this will work.

SATA Drives

title Slackware64 13.0 (/dev/sdb1)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=normal


IDE Drives

title Slackware64 13.0 (/dev/hdb1)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro vga=normal

Here's my menu.lst

# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'. Sat May 16 15:33:42 2009
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.7789'. You can restore it like this.
# dd if=mbr.sda.7789 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
timeout 10
default 0
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section

# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Slackware64-Current (/dev/sda5)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda5 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends

# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Bluewhite64Current (/dev/sda6)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends

# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Slamd 12.2 (/dev/sda7)
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda7 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends

# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Bluewhite 12.2 (/dev/sda8)
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda8 ro vga=normal
# Linux bootable partition config ends

title --- For help press 'c', type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title --- For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/grub.txt'
root (hd0)



The grub from Slack-Current will boot ext4 partitions.

ftp://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/...nt/extra/grub/


Hope this helps.

Thanks! I will try this approach first. What filesystem have you chosen for Slackware to be able to chainload from Grub?

I use ext3 for my Slackware, but I boot into ext4 for Ubuntu, so it seems modern grubs can do it. I'm afraid I don't know what's involved in putting Slackware into an ext4 partition.

Good luck!