Cannonfodder Posted February 24, 2003 Report Share Posted February 24, 2003 Have to admit I've never dual-booted linux distros. Is there any advice from my fellow propeller heads? Can the different distros share a swap partitions? Can they share a /home partition? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest duir66 Posted February 24, 2003 Report Share Posted February 24, 2003 I'll ask one of the multi-boot OS geeks I work with tomorrow. I think some of their stuff is triple-boot computers. Don't know about multi-linux boot though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted February 24, 2003 Report Share Posted February 24, 2003 Short answer. Yes. Most, but not all linux installation programs will find an existing swap partition an use it rather than create a new one. That's been my experience anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted February 24, 2003 Report Share Posted February 24, 2003 There's no problem with sharing the /home partition. For the swap partition, no problem either (even sharable with win!) EXCEPT if your swap partition is used when power is down, if you use the swsusp kernel patch (software suspend to swap). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramfree17 Posted February 24, 2003 Report Share Posted February 24, 2003 ... EXCEPT if your swap partition is used when power is down, if you use the swsusp kernel patch (software suspend to swap). would someone care to explain this further? how do you use a swap when power is down? thanks! ciao! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest anon Posted February 24, 2003 Report Share Posted February 24, 2003 Never tried sharing a /home partition but sharing /swap, no problem. I even have my /swap on a different drive ( read somewhere it improves performance) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted February 24, 2003 Report Share Posted February 24, 2003 ... EXCEPT if your swap partition is used when power is downhow do you use a swap when power is down? thanks!The swsusp project is a kernel patch that enables you to halt the computer "to-disk" without using any APM- or ACPI-specific feature. Thus it is usable with any hardware. You can leave all your applications open, etc...Roughly, when shuting down the machine, the state of the machine, and the whole memory are copied to swap. At start of the computer, the patched kernel looks at the swap to see if a previous state is to be restored. If so, then the state is restored as it was before shutdown (X, open applications...), else the system is booted as usual. I'd like to try this patch, but I've heard that it is not trivial, so, as I never even compiled a kernel... Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramfree17 Posted February 24, 2003 Report Share Posted February 24, 2003 thanks for the explanation tYY. ciao! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted February 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Ok, I now have my system setup with Mandrake 9.0 and Mandrake 9.1RC1. Here's my problem.. I've taken the lilo.conf settings for each distro and updated each distro with the other distro's setting so I can boot into either distro (mouthfull). When I install lilo from Mandrake 9.0, I get a normal boot up for 9.0 and errors [FAILS] for 9.1Rc1. When I install lilo from Mandrake 9.1Rc1, i get a normal boot up for 9.1rc1 and errors [FAILS] for 9.0. Here' is the lilo.conf for 9.0 boot=/dev/hda map=/boot/map vga=normal default=Windows2000 keytable=/boot/us.klt prompt nowarn timeout=3000 message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw ignore-table image=/boot/vmlinuz label=Mandrake9 root=/dev/hdc7 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi" vga=788 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz label=Mandrake91RC1 root=/dev/hdc11 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off" vga=788 read-only other=/dev/hda1 label=Windows2000 table=/dev/hda Here is the lilo.conf from 9.1 map=/boot/map default="Mandrake9" keytable=/boot/us.klt prompt nowarn timeout=100 message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw image=/boot/vmlinuz label=Mandrake9 root=/dev/hdc7 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi" vga=788 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz label="Mandrake91RC1" root=/dev/hdc11 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off" vga=788 read-only other=/dev/hda1 label="windows" table=/dev/hda Anyone have a clue? (we need a head scratching emoticon!). Also, what is the acpi=off thingie? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qnr Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Actually, I share a swap and /home partition between Linux and BSD on my Atari TT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted February 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Forgot to mention, I'm sharing a swap partition.. Here's my drive layout.. /dev/hdc1 Extended /dev/hdc2 Linux swap /dev/hdc5 FAT32 /dev/hdc6 FAT32 /dev/hdc7 9.0 / /dev/hdc8 9.0 /usr /dev/hdc9 9.0 /home /dev/hdc10 9.0 & 9.1 /share /dev/hdc11 9.1 / /dev/hdc12 9.1 /usr /dev/hdc13 9.1 /home Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 I find that using one and the same lilo works nicely if you have recompiled the kernel or so, and you're trying out the new one (or completely switching to it), but using lilo to boot 2 different distros hasn't done much for me. Maybe that's why loads of people prefer grub, it seems grub handles that better. On the other hand, whenever you change grub, it doesn't give you the feedback that lilo does (added ... ) so if you screw up the file you may be stuck with nothing... Anyway, I was dual booting to mdk9.0 and RH8.0 before (and definitely sticking with mdk, really don't like rh..) and when trying to use mdk lilo (pointing to the rh in the same way the rh lilo was), I would still get the mandrake graphical boot process (blue-grey/whiteish)... and it wouldn't boot. Same the other way around. Now I kicked off RH, put mdk9.1rc in its place and just installed lilo on a floppy (as is proposed during install). The lilo on the flop is really only that, it points to the right partition (so it doesn't load the kernel or so, it's quite fast) and things boot from there. So when I put the floppy in, it boots mdk9.1rc1, when I take it out, it goes to 9.0. Makes it easier actually, I don't have to select anything during boot. Unless I want to boot windows, but that's been some time now... ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted February 27, 2003 Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 You have to copy the vmlinuz and initrd.img for 9.1 to a new folder in /boot for 9.0 and give the path to these files( eg. /boot/md9.1/vmlinuz, /boot/md9.1/initrd.img) in the 9.0 lilo in order to boot to 9.1 from 9.0 lilo. At boot time lilo only mounts the partition from which it was initially installed and if your using 9.0 lilo it can't see the 9.1 partition. I usually use the boot floppies to transfer the data per this post: http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php...2792&highlight= You don't need to use the boot floppies if you can mount the 9.1 partion and copy the files to 9.0 and you don't need to use mcc if you want to edit lilo.conf by hand. Just be sure to run lilo before you reboot and try the new entry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted February 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2003 Thanks for the info, I'll mess around. Lilo doesn't work like I thought a boot manager would.. (implied critisizm?) :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ndeb Posted February 28, 2003 Report Share Posted February 28, 2003 cannonfodder, This is what I have for my triple-boot system (win2k, mdk-9.0, mdk9.1rc1) and this works with lilo: boot=/dev/hda map=/boot/map vga=normal default=linux keytable=/boot/us.klt prompt nowarn timeout=50 message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw ignore-table image=/boot/vmlinuz label=linux root=/dev/hdb1 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi" read-only image=/mnt/linux/boot/vmlinuz label=linux-mdk9.1rc1 root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/mnt/linux/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off" read-only other=/dev/hda1 label=windows table=/dev/hda I have a /mnt/linux directory (in my mdk-9.0 install) where the / of my mdk-9.1 is mounted. Now, with this setting, if u run lilo, it will do the right thing. This is not very elegant but gets the job done. Why it works is for experts to decide. This is what I get when I run lilo -v -t: LILO version 22.3.2 (test mode), Copyright (C) 1992-1998 Werner Almesberger Development beyond version 21 Copyright (C) 1999-2002 John Coffman Released 11-Jul-2002 and compiled at 21:48:42 on Aug 13 2002. Reading boot sector from /dev/hda Using GRAPHIC secondary loader Calling map_insert_data Mapping message file /boot/message -> message-graphic Calling map_insert_file Boot image: /boot/vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.4.19-24mdk Mapping RAM disk /boot/initrd.img -> initrd-2.4.19-24mdk.img Added linux * Boot image: /mnt/linux/boot/vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.4.21pre4-6mdk Mapping RAM disk /mnt/linux/boot/initrd.img -> initrd-2.4.21pre4-6mdk.img Added linux-mdk9.1rc1 Boot other: /dev/hda1, on /dev/hda, loader CHAIN Added windows The boot sector and the map file have *NOT* been altered. As u can see all the right (kernel, initrd) pairs have been selected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.