how to install 2 linux(es) on a PC?

how to install 2 linux(es) on a PC?

[vick Julius]

Hi
I installed 2 Linux flavors (red Hat and mandrake) on my machine and I could 
not boot both of them. I mean in grub (or lilo) I could not have choice of 
the 2 Linuxes?
Did someone install two linuxes on the same PC?
What should I do to have this luxury?

Vick

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Re: how to install 2 linux(es) on a PC?

[Jim C. Brown]

On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 03:17:44AM +0000, vick Julius wrote:
> Hi
> I installed 2 Linux flavors (red Hat and mandrake) on my machine and I 
> could not boot both of them. I mean in grub (or lilo) I could not have 
> choice of the 2 Linuxes?
> Did someone install two linuxes on the same PC?
> What should I do to have this luxury?
> 
> Vick
> 

Which partitions are the 2 linuxes installed on? (I assume you installed them
on separate partitions, for obvious reasons they can't be installed onto the
same partition.)

What does your lilo.conf/grub conif file look like? Whats the error message
that the boot loader gives you?

P.S. I'm just curious, why do you want to have 2 linuxes installed in the
first place?

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Re: how to install 2 linux(es) on a PC?

[terry white]

on "11-4-2003" "Jim C. Brown" writ:

: Which partitions are the 2 linuxes installed on? (I assume you installed them
: on separate partitions, for obvious reasons they can't be installed onto the
: same partition.)

... i don't see why not.  given 'one' partition, create two file systems,
and make each distribution, descndant from the 'root' of each.


: What does your lilo.conf/grub conif file look like? Whats the error message
: that the boot loader gives you?

    "error" output is your friend.


: P.S. I'm just curious, why do you want to have 2 linuxes installed in the
: first place?

   i'm guessing "RH's" departure plays a part in it ...


-- 
... i'm a man, but i can change,
    if i have to , i guess ...

Re: how to install 2 linux(es) on a PC?

[jbrown105]

On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 00:00:59 -0800 (PST), "terry white"
<twhite@aniota.com> said:
> on "11-4-2003" "Jim C. Brown" writ:
> 
> : Which partitions are the 2 linuxes installed on? (I assume you
> installed them
> : on separate partitions, for obvious reasons they can't be installed
> onto the
> : same partition.)
> 
> ... i don't see why not.  given 'one' partition, create two file systems,

I'm not sure how one can make 2 file systems on the same partition. Seems
tricky to me.
You might wanna either post an explaination on how it is done, or post a
link to a page
which explains the process. (If he wanted he could also use 2 separate
hard drives,
but I assume he can't afford that luxury so I pointed him into making 2
partitions,
which is tricky but at least it doesn't cost money.)

Also, AFAIK Lilo can only be made to select booting of PARTITIONS, so to
be able to boot the 2 linuxes with Lilo, they'd have to be on separate
partitions. If i'm wrong
please correct me. I don't know anything about GRUB so that might be
different.

In any case, we are agreed: the 2 linuxes must at least be on separate
file systems.

> and make each distribution, descndant from the 'root' of each

> 
> 
> : What does your lilo.conf/grub conif file look like? Whats the error
> message
> : that the boot loader gives you?
> 
>     "error" output is your friend.
> 

I don't understand what you mean here. I'm asking for the output because
I believe that
will reveal some information about the problem (as would the config
files). The more
information we have the better.

> 
> : P.S. I'm just curious, why do you want to have 2 linuxes installed in
> the
> : first place?
> 
>    i'm guessing "RH's" departure plays a part in it ...
> 

Ouch. I'm not familiar with RH's departure, but I have heard that its
raised a lot of
issues.

> 
> -- 
> ... i'm a man, but i can change,
>     if i have to , i guess ...
> 
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Re: how to install 2 linux(es) on a PC?

[terry white]

on "11-5-2003" "jbrown105@speedymail.org" writ:

: I'm not sure how one can make 2 file systems on the same partition. Seems
: tricky to me.

... giving it 'some' thought, you're correct, and i stand corrected.


: Also, AFAIK Lilo can only be made to select booting of PARTITIONS, so to
: be able to boot the 2 linuxes with Lilo, they'd have to be on separate
: partitions.

    that is correct, however, there's not a real restriction on how many
different bootable images can reside there.


: >     "error" output is your friend.

: I don't understand what you mean here. I'm asking for the output
: because I believe that will reveal some information about the problem
: (as would the config files). The more information we have the better.

    exactly, "error" output is your friend ...


-- 
... i'm a man, but i can change,
    if i have to , i guess ...

Re: how to install 2 linux(es) on a PC?

[greg]

On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 21:17, jbrown105@speedymail.org wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 00:00:59 -0800 (PST), "terry white" said:
> > on "11-4-2003" "Jim C. Brown" writ:
> > : Which partitions are the 2 linuxes installed on? (I assume you installed them
> > : on separate partitions, for obvious reasons they can't be installed onto the
> > : same partition.)
> > 
> > ... i don't see why not.  given 'one' partition, create two file systems,
> 
> Also, AFAIK Lilo can only be made to select booting of PARTITIONS, so to
> be able to boot the 2 linuxes with Lilo, they'd have to be on separate
> partitions. If i'm wrong
> please correct me. I don't know anything about GRUB so that might be
> different.
> 
> In any case, we are agreed: the 2 linuxes must at least be on separate
> file systems.
> 
> > and make each distribution, descndant from the 'root' of each

it is perfectly reasonable and common to have various bootable OS's on a
disk, each in its own partition/filesystem.

and it is perfectly reasonable and common to have various bootable
kernels in any partition, which can be selected for booting by either
lilo or grub.

but the term operating system does properly refer to more than just the
kernel, indeed including that broad set of libraries and utilities that
live throughout the filesystem.

since many if not most of those utilities are expected to be at a
certain location (pathname), it is reasonable and usual to have "just
one operating system" per filesystem.

although i could imagine having more than one, if the bootup procedure
somewhere executed a "chroot", thus delineating a filesystem within a
filesystem.  but it would be difficult to imagine wanting to bother to
make such a setup actually work.

> On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 03:17:44AM +0000, vick Julius wrote:
> > I installed 2 Linux flavors (red Hat and mandrake) on my machine and I 
> > could not boot both of them. I mean in grub (or lilo) I could not have 
> > choice of the 2 Linuxes?
> > Did someone install two linuxes on the same PC?
> > What should I do to have this luxury?

i am presuming you installed them on separate partitions.  the installer
for redhat (and probably also for mandrake, tho i'm not familiar with
it) has the ability to setup a chainload to the previously installed
operating system.  if you didn't make use of that feature at install
time, you would have a situation where you can only boot to whichever
one you installed last.

you can still add in the other one to the list of choices to be booted
by either lilo or grub.

one way is to setup a chainload to the other partition.  in order for
this to work, that other partition must have a working boot record. 
grub can be setup to work in this way, i don't know about lilo.

the other way instead of chainload is for either grub or lilo to
directly specify the location of the kernel to be booted in the other
partition.  to know the particulars of the boot command line to be given
for that kernel, look at the grub.conf or lilo.conf of that system.

in order to look, all you have to do is mount that other partition.

Re: how to install 2 linux(es) on a PC?

[fewa]

El jue, 06-11-2003 a las 16:58, greg escribió:
> On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 21:17, jbrown105@speedymail.org wrote:
> > On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 00:00:59 -0800 (PST), "terry white" said:
> > > on "11-4-2003" "Jim C. Brown" writ:

I've been reading this chain from the begining and now I think I have an
idea of the problem.

Is it that you cannot boot both systems? So only one is "bootable" at a
given time.

If that's the problem, the solution is simple.
In both linuxes make lilo install the boot sector in the partition
itself (/dev/hda1 for example instead of /dev/hda).
After that, in one of the distributions configure the boot loader to be
installed in the MBR, with the usual settings for that distribution and
configuring the other one as an other entry (as you would with a
non-linux operating system). This way you can chain both boot systems.

Hope it helps.
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Re: how to install 2 linux(es) on a PC?

[Cor]

greg wrote:

> On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 21:17, jbrown105@speedymail.org wrote:
> 
>>On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 00:00:59 -0800 (PST), "terry white" said:
>>
>>>on "11-4-2003" "Jim C. Brown" writ:
>>>: Which partitions are the 2 linuxes installed on? (I assume you installed them
>>>: on separate partitions, for obvious reasons they can't be installed onto the
>>>: same partition.)
>>>
>>>... i don't see why not.  given 'one' partition, create two file systems,
>>
>>Also, AFAIK Lilo can only be made to select booting of PARTITIONS, so to
>>be able to boot the 2 linuxes with Lilo, they'd have to be on separate
>>partitions. If i'm wrong please correct me.
[snip]

> although i could imagine having more than one, if the bootup procedure
> somewhere executed a "chroot", thus delineating a filesystem within a
> filesystem.  but it would be difficult to imagine wanting to bother to
> make such a setup actually work.

Although I prefer seperate partitions, this can be usefull if you only 
have one partition to build for instance LFS on http://linuxfromscratch.org/

A hint describing the process can be found here
http://www.nl.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/downloads/files/one-partition-hint.txt


Greetz,
Cor Lem