Hi:

After reading the yellow pages on Multi-boot I've gone with Ranish Partition Manager (RPM). It lets me create as many as 31 primary partitions and place them in the MBR (four at a time) in any order I want. This is because I already have one W2k, two Wxp installs and intend to install 6 diferent flavors of (Ubuntu, Mandriva, OpenSuse, Debian, Gentoo) in case I run into hardware or config. problems or I just like any distribution better than the other.

My first HD is 80 Gb is currently like this:

W2k NTFS 2 Gb
Wxp1 NTFS 6 Gb
Wxp2 NTFS 6 Gb
ProgFiles NTFD 9 Gb
Ubuntu 6.06 ext3 4 Gb

My second HD is also 80 Gb and has 3 primary partitions:

Swap Partition Swap 1 Gb
Media Fat32 40 Gb
Docs Fat 32 29 Gb

So I made the Ubuntu partition HD1 6.0 Gb (sda1), and swap on HD2 (sdb1) visible and placed de Ubuntu CD on the DVD Drive, rebooted and installed with no errors. Installed \ on HD1 (sda1) and swap on HD2 (sdb1). Rebooted and Grub hanged. Again....Hanged.

Not only that, grub replaced RPM in the MBR as the boot loader of choice. After fixing RPM in MBR I went trought the install process again to check if there is an option to place grub in \, or in \boot, but couldn't find it as in the first install.

I've seen this option available for other distros (FC6).

DO YOU KNOW OF A WAY (IN UBUNTU 6.06 LTS) TO PLACE GRUB ANYWHERE BUT IN THE FIRST SECTOR OF THE DISK???

Thanks in advance...

You have an option during installation to place grub someplace other than the MBR. Read the install screens carefully. You'll have to use your own bootloader to load grub to load ubuntu (or get RanishBL to load ubuntu if you can).

Note: to linux people "RPM" = "RedHat Package Manager".

Thanks Simon for your reply, will be sure to follow convention (rpm) on future posts. I went trough the install process again. It's a 6 step process. Before proceeding I prepared my 80G HD1 like this:

W2k NTFS 2 Gb
Wxp1 NTFS 6 Gb
Wxp2 NTFS 6 Gb
ProgFiles NTFD 9 Gb
/boot ext2 0.8 Gb
Ubuntu 6.06 ext3 3.2 Gb

My HD2 ramained:

Swap Partition Swap 1 Gb
Media Fat32 40 Gb
Docs Fat 32 29 Gb

After giving it a go I got the same results as before.... and, during the 6 step install process, didn't find the option to place grub anywhere.

Can you be a little more specific as to where, during the install, I should get the option to place grub somplace other than the MBR??

Thanks Again

For the graphical install (Ubuntu Dapper Desktop), You should find it at the end of step 5 (after manually partitioning the disk)...

You partitioning scheme is puzzling me:
Using the live mode, open a terminal and type "fdisk -l" and see what linux makes of these partitions. Copy the instruction line and the resulting output so you can paste it to this forum. Thanks.

Probably you can just use the GRUB command line to install GRUB to the partition of your choice.

Aside: About Ranish Partition Manager
I've been reading around:
http://www.trombettworks.com/multi-boot.htm

This is unbelievably complex with odd restrictions: i.e. all bootable partitions need to be below the 8GB limit ... why? GRUB can boot from any partition!

The documentation keeps talking about installing partitions in the MBR - but it seems they are really talking about putting partition entries in the partition table in the MBR.

However - AFAIK, noone is using ranish as a bootloader, only as a partition manager and partitioning tool. There are many howto's concerning multiboot environments and ranish, however, they all stop exaplining at the "install linux" part. Indeed, the Official Guide stops after resizing the windows partition and announces that "you have done everything you need to dual-boot windows and linux"! In fact - it suggests using the linux native partitioner (named as disk-driud, suggesting the author only knows about redhat distros) to partition empty space created by ranish. (Indeed, the simple partitioning scheme suggested is easier to do with gParted.)

Anyway, rather than continue discussing ranish here, I've opened another thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...21#post2534421

Hey Simon:

Went through all the ubunto (and some debian) documentation I could find on how to access the "expert" or detailed mode on installing ubuntu (DesktopCD) in a more customized way. Specialy the option on locating the boot loader if any. No luck. So I decided to install Gentoo instead, Went on and after several attempts I got it installed. As for Ranish, my partition scheme and my experience with ranish I will post on 2534421.... As for finding the option after step 5....will give it a try after reboot...as I am currently on WXp.
Thanks

Yeah, sorry about that - this one is my mistake.
I checked the ubuntu documentation and discovered that the Ubuntu Desktop install will only let you install grub to MBR. To install ubuntu grub anywhere else, you need the "Alternative" install CD.

Thanks Simon for your replies. Will download the alternate Install CD. But will go now with Edgy and give it a try. See ya around...