jeanrev Posted June 3, 2004 Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 Hi all, What precaution should we take when partitionnong a HD in order to install two distro on the same disk ? I did a partitionning with 2 (/) 2 (swap) and 2 (/home) and at the reboot after the first installation of MDK9.1 I had the message "Kernel panic cannot find init files " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted June 3, 2004 Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 This is becuase the initrd image needs to be in the boot directory defined by lilo. You dont need 2x swap btw, its unformatted space ! 2x /home is OK since it can mess stuff about . Can you post the contents of your 2x /boot directories (just ls- l ) If you cant get into Mandy use disk 1 as rescue and follow instructions to chroot to the disk. Then you can ls - l >/home/<jean>/list_of_mdk_boot.txt then you should be able to see this from mephis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BillM26 Posted June 3, 2004 Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 > What precaution should we take when partitionnong a HD in order to install two distro on the > same disk ? > I did a partitionning with 2 (/) 2 (swap) and 2 (/home) > and at the reboot after the first installation of MDK9.1 I had the message "Kernel panic > cannot find init files " OK. I have been using Linux (Mandrake) "multiple boot" since back around MDK 8.0 somewhere. I do not use the "latest and greatest" for my daily work until I have checked everything out and know what it does - sometimes this could be more than a month after I install it. > I did a partitionning with 2 (/) 2 (swap) and 2 (/home) you need 2(/) and 2 (/home) partitions, *ONLY* 1 (swap). You can only have one version running at any one time, so one is enough _ a second '/swap' partition confuses Linux! I also have a '/boot' partition (small - less than 100 MB is large enough), not nesseccary, but I have found it easier than letting the install build one in each '/' partition. You *MUST* have elements for all verions that you are running in "one boot partition" to make the selection from LILO. example: vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk (for MDK 9.1), vmlinuz-2.4.22-10mdk (for MDK 9.2), and vmlinuz-2.6.3-7mdk (for MDK 10.0). Similar for "initrd- . . .", "config- . . .", ect. Another practice I use is to put commerial program in "/opt", that way they don't get wiped out when I upgrade and format a "/" partition. As an example (only) my LILO file looks like this: My 'swap' partition is sdb7 (SCSI, second spindle/drive, partition #7) # File generated by DrakX/drakboot # WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file boot=/dev/sda map=/boot/map default="linux-100pwp" keytable=/boot/us.klt prompt nowarn timeout=100 message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3-7mdk label="linux-100pwp" root=/dev/sdc10 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/sdb7" read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-10mdk label="linux-92A" root=/dev/sda6 initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.22-10mdk.img append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/sdb7" read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-0.13mdk label="linux_B_91" root=/dev/sdb9 initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.21-0.13mdk.img append="devfs=mount acpi=off" read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3-7mdk label="263-7" root=/dev/sdc10 initrd=/boot/initrd-2.6.3-7mdk.img append="devfs=mount acpi=ht resume=/dev/sdb7" read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz label="failsafe" root=/dev/sdc10 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/sdb7 devfs=nomount" read-only ............................................................... All my *work* files are kept in "/data" - example KMail is in "/data/mail" and is used by all versions. Need more info billm326(at)comcast(dot)net Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanrev Posted June 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 I think my mistake was to make 2 (/) partitions I will start again splitting the HD in 2 parts and leave the second part blank (unformated ) so that the first distro to be installed can see only one (/) one swap and one (/home) then I will make a new prtitionning during the second distro install is that better ? I think so Thanks for your advices Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted June 3, 2004 Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 No you NEED 2x / (well technically its possible not to but it would mean running the same versions of everything one from deb and one from rpm. ) Doesnt mephis install from a running install ? you need 2(/) and 2 (/home) partitions, *ONLY* 1 (swap). Read what BillM26 had put..... a seperate /boot is optional but you can only have one! so either mdk will need to use the mephis one or visa vera OR make a seperate partition for that too (as BillM26 says) technically again /home can be in the same partitions.... if I were doing this i would actually let the installer put EVERYTHING into 1 partition per distro including /home BUT leave some space on the disk. later you can make them SHARE a home ... but doing this in install is not recommended. hence your disk would be / for MDK (containing a /home) / for mephis (containing a /home) swap empty don't worry about MDK seeing other partitions Or not, if iot can see them and you know what partition is which just dont use it. I have not installed mephis so sorry dont know about this... does it use the knoppix-installer script (since its based on knoppix) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 3, 2004 Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 MEPIS installs from a live cd, and you can see everything from a gui. It is really clever. I have 2 /, 2 /home, 1 /usr, and 1 swap. Mandrake has /, /home, /usr, and swap. SuSE has /, /home, and swap. When I ran three linuxes, I took the two SuSE partitoins and ran a distro in each, again only using one swap. /boot is not necessary for any of the distros I have used, around 8. (Only three at any single time!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanrev Posted June 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 Now I make one / one swap and one /*home out of half of my hard disk and left the other half free then I installed MDK 9.1 OK MDK runs OK then I started to install Mepis and made other two partitions intended to be / and /home but the installer refused the partition /dev/hda2 saying none and accepted the already used swap and the new /home partitions I stopped the install afraid that mepis would choose and format the first / partition dedicated to Mandrake there I am the only solution I see is to start installing Mepis first on the hard disk and see if Mandrake accepts the root partition I make for it i thought we couldn't have 2 different root partition but from your answers I see we can have 2roots 2 home and one swap that is what I tried thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanrev Posted June 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 I can try home in the same partition but I definitely need two root partitions ( / ) one for each distro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted June 3, 2004 Report Share Posted June 3, 2004 Yes, the home partitions will work either/or, but if there are two different versions of kde, for example, you might see a problem to work around. When I am in Mandrake, my SuSE partitions are known as SuSE_home and SuSE_root. When I am in SuSE, my partitons for Mamdrake are known as Many_home, and Mandy_root. The names are the key. There are not really two /, only one at a time. Is that what you are doing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanrev Posted June 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 I installed Mepis first but at reboot after install I have stranges caracters and the message "insert boot disk and press any key" this indicates that the install went wrong somewhere isn't it ? i will go and ask on www.mepis.org and be back cherrio Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 jeanrev... the absolute easiest is to not have a seperate partition for home at boot time. in lilo you have a entry which says where the boot partiton is boot=/dev/hdaX where x is the partition.... both mandy and knoppix (so I presume mepis) use an initrd kernel... this is like a way of pre-loading everything at boot time and its usually efficient but it means the initrd.gz file etc need to either be in the same directory OR made specially. The last way is complex and if your struggling on this that is harder. The way I do this is to just install both distro's and then the first one wont boot. Then I copy the contents of /boot in one over to the /boot in the other by mounting them.... once thats finished I then copy AND paste the lilo stuff specific to the kernels I wanna run into one newer bigger /etc/lilo.conf (having made backups) and easy way is copy them to the same /etc/ directory call one lilo.conf.mdk and the other lilo.conf.mepis then cp lilo.conf.mdk lilo.conf.mepis lilo.conf.both then cp lilo.conf.both lilo.conf (this makes sure everythnng is backed up) every file mentioned in lilo.conf should be in the /boot directory specified by the boot= option in lilo. once your sure you rerun lilo..... if it gives and error DONT REBOOT.... edit the file and check .... (if you must reboot copy the lilo.conf.<whichever> to lilo.conf then run lilo again! ) Sorry im away for the w'end but Im sure Ixthusdan and everyone else will help out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BillM26 Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Ixthusdan said: Yes, the home partitions will work either/or, but if there are two different versions of kde, for example, you might see a problem to work around. I agree! Not all distros put things in the same place. One of the truisms I have learned is "when Linux is confused, I'm confused" Linux will allow only **one** mount point name for each session; one '/' , one '/home' , or one of anything. This is my method of set-up so that can view (not use) any partition on my system when I am in any other session. I can read/copy/paste from any partition to any other partition so long as I abide by the password rules. My answers (way of doing things after several years of tweaks) are'nt the only answers or way of doing things but they are proven (in my situation) and could be used as guidelines in other situations. Use names that are meaningfull to you. The mount points, for example, for say MDK 10.0 (last column) are what is stored in "/etc/fstab" for MDK 10.0. I use a common password for all ~/ folders and a different but common password for all "/" folders. Declareing the "mount points, I believe is key and it doesn't make any difference if they are mounted during install or latter so long as they get saved in "/etc/fstab" Below is a table that gives the names of the mount points for the different partitions **on my machine** Partition Mnt-point Mnt-point Mnt-point name for MDK 9.1 for MDK 9.2 for MDK 10.0 ----------------- ------------------ -------------------- -------------------- /dev/sda5 /92A_home /home /92A_home /dev/sda6 /92A_root / /92A_root /dev/sda7 /opt /opt /opt /dev/sdb5 /data /data /data /dev/sdb6 /warehouse /warehouse /warehouse /dev/sdb7 /swap /swap /swap /dev/sdb8 /home /91B_home /91B_home /dev/sdb9 / /91B_root /91B_root /dev/sdc7 /100C_home /100C_home /home /dev/sdc8 /store /store /store /dev/sdc10 /100C_root /100C_root / Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 yep what i was saying is /home doesnt need to be in a different partiton Its nice if it is for upgrades but then.... upgrades are a different topic I tend to just create a Documents symlink in ~ which links to a shared part. All the auto stuff like .kde stays where it should but then i have a ~/Documents/downloads etc. which I set as the Dload dir etc. Im suggesting let the distro's do what they will till you can boot both then start moving stuff around..... less chance to accidentally write over the wrong partition that way.... I ALWAYS print or write by hand the partitions before I start.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeanrev Posted June 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Gowator, I am not sure I got your point Anyway my problem is now simpler After Mepis being installed on the whole HD I got this message at reboot on HD : "insert boot disk and press any key" so my question now is : Is there any testing procedure to fix a linux installation which failed ? i.g. no boot on hard disk after install is completed should we use a failsafe procedure or what ? Thanks for your attention Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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