Mounting other linux partitions

[tyme]

all those steps are so much more complicated then just grabbing the livecd :P the livecd is also safer as you won't be messing at all with an active system.

 

Tyme, Arctic said, in post 4, his first to me here, exactly what you say about logging in automatically. In the failsafe, init 3, startx procedure of which he spoke, I could not log in as root and had to do that as a user.

I have to admit, I didn't read the whole thread before replying :unsure:

[payasam]

Arctic, when I tried to log in as root, I typed not "root" but the e-mail address I'd given as the security administrator's identity. Now that that's sorted out, I should be able to move ahead with whichever option works.

 

Tyme, if you look at the procedure which Arctic has set out pretty clearly, perhaps you won't call the business complicated. Increasingly as time passes, I find myself more comfortable at the command line than in graphical interfaces, many of which I need time to figure out.

 

No version of Windows comes with a partition manager, so far as I know. You need tools from sources other than Microsoft: Partition Magic, Ranish, and so on. I have been most comfortable with BootIt NG the few times I have used it. Since Linux is a fundamentally more capable system, to a good degree because it is mostly open, one would expect it to have such tools -- and indeed it has them.

[tyme]

Tyme, if you look at the procedure which Arctic has set out pretty clearly, perhaps you won't call the business complicated. Increasingly as time passes, I find myself more comfortable at the command line than in graphical interfaces, many of which I need time to figure out.

Oh, I know quite well the procedure that arctic is explaining. I've done various forms of the same process myself. I've moved whole installations from one disk to another ;) I still find using a livecd to be a safer and quicker way of doing partitioning.

[payasam]

I have PCLOS installed, folks. Booted from its live CD to see how much space it wanted, then thought I'd see if its partitioning stuff would do the job -- and it did it. I'm writing from it now (Konqueror). When the matter of install partitions came up, it offered to use the swap of Mandriva. I'd already made a separate swap for it, but now I wonder if I couldn't have saved some space by using /hda7 for both MDV and PCLOS. I did not ask it to install its bootloader anywhere, but there was no positive indication that it did not put it somewhere. I've configured Lilo in MDV before, but now I can't remember where the file hangs out or what the wretched thing is called. A quick look around here, or in Google, should show me the way. Thanks for your help, all.

Edited August 4, 2006 by payasam

[payasam]

Added these lines to /etc/lilo.conf in MDV. All the same as those for MDV other than those marked with asterisks.

 

image=/boot/vmlinuz

label="pclinuxos" ** "mandriva"

root=/dev/hda10 ** hda6

initrd=/boot/initrd.img

append=" resume=/dev/hda9" ** hda7

 

Ran LILO and quit. When I tried to boot into PCLOS, got many red warnings. Could not get to desktop. Quit, booted into MDV, copied back the original lilo.conf, which I'd saved elsewhere. Clearly I shall have to make other changes to that file. Straight imitation with variables changed won't do. So now I have PCLOS on hard drive but no way to get into it -- other than the CD, I expect.

[scarecrow]

When using LILO, modding its configuration isn't enough. You have to chroot to the mounted distro root partition and re-run /sbin/lilo to apply changes.

Why don't you just switch to grub?

And IMO it's quite logical to have common /boot and swap partitions. A common /home partition is another story.

[payasam]

I did re-run /sbin/lilo, Scarecrow: "Ran LILO and quit." As for having shared partitions, perhaps it is now too late. I'd much rather get LILO moving than switch to Grub, thank you. Become too old to learn many new things. Seems to me this PCLOS idea too was born of approaching senility.

 

[EDIT] I'll print out the stuff on LILO configuration which sits in the FAQs. If I can make sense of it, perhaps all will be well.

Edited August 4, 2006 by payasam

[arctic]

I suggest you mount the PCLOS partition in Mandy and take a look at the /boot section it has. Then not down the exact names of the initrd.img and vmlinuz file. Then read these two guides again (reading things again never hurts. ;) ):

https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=10598

https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=5082

They explain in detail the dual-boot configuration. I guess your problem was caused by a typo.

 

Could you tell us a bit more on the red error messages you got? It could give us some clue where the root of your problem is.

 

Don't give up. :)

[payasam]

Arctic, the two guides to which you point me are the ones I found in the FAQs. Certainly I shall read them. Seems to me my problem was that I didn't put in the correct names of the initrd.img and vmlinuz files because I didn't know what they are. For decades I've left typos to more capable people. At this time, all I can say about the red error messages is that they zip by so fast that that there's no chance of my reading them. I expect the answer is to boot interactive. Haven't given up, but have taken to putting on a crash helmet when I slam my head against the wall.

[payasam]

The multiple boot example in the FAQ has the second Linux distro controlling LILO. Not what I want, and perhaps not possible either, since MDV came before PCLOS and I'm not likely to want to leave that. Here's what I did, in MDV.

 

Created mount point /mnt/pclinuxos, edited /etc/fstab to add entry to mount second (not first, since that is MDV) distro's partition containing its /root, typed "mount -a". What I added was "/dev/hda10/mnt/pclinux ext 3". Didn't know whether to add "1 3" or "2 1".

 

Here's where disaster struck. Went to /mnt/pclinuxos/etc as advised, opened the lilo.conf there. Found that it pointed not to itself (hda9 and hda10) but every which way it pleased. In terror born of incomprehension (technically, "duhness"), rolled back everything.

[payasam]

Spent quite some while looking at whatever I could find on setting up LILO for my needs. It's clear that I must shoot *at* the target and not merely in its general direction. The trouble with much writing is that because those responsible for it are entirely clear about what they are saying, they imagine that their words will be clear also to those who read them. That is why editors -- I've been one for over three and a half decades -- exist. I've done chiefly academic books, but among the other stuff was the manual for a dot matrix printer many years ago; and by golly, was it gobbledygook.

[neddie]

Three and a half decades - aha, now you've given it away! So your avatar is actually your daughter then?

 

Have you thought about contributing your own docs, or editing current ones? Maybe you have enough of it during your day job, but I for one would love to see more how-tos for the mortal - a bit more "keep the rope handy" and "putting on a crash helmet" kind of humour!!

[payasam]

Thanks, Neddie. While I might at times be a tolerable court jester, I'd be a disaster if I were to write of things of which I knew next to nothing. The lady is not my daughter. My contemporaries' kids are ten or more years older than she is. I have, though, been her devoted slave since she was four or five hours old. "Avatar", incidentally, is a Sanskrit word which has to do with the miraculous manifestations of supposed divinities. I do not know when it acquired this strange new meaning. My potted description of myself is in the text under the picture. It is a protest against being described as "Awesome", which I have always understood to have a quite different meaning. But if they can call a peace loving Swiss that...

[neddie]

I guess once upon a time, only the gods had the power to manifest themselves in a completely different form. Now we can do it too - a completely new visual appearance, maybe a completely new character. It is a new manifestation, if you want to look at it like that - I assume that's where the name got reused.

As for "awesome", I have no idea what they were thinking - I'm just ignoring it until I get my fourth penguin :)

[payasam]

That's one way of looking at it. Another is to accept that nothing has a fixed meaning any longer -- this today, something else tomorrow. It amazes me that people contradict themselves so rapidly, make statements devoid of reason, and appear not to be aware of what they do. All languages have evolved and will continue to do that: but if verbs are casually turned into nouns or adjectives, for example, we'll soon be swimming in polygons on dry land, so to speak. What will the fourth penguin make you? A brontosaurus? Which brings up another of my pet peeves: the importance we now attach to labels, ignoring the reality beneath.