On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 21:17:23 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 09:32:16PM +0000, Bo Grimes wrote: > > > Right now I have Linux on hdb3 and Windows 98 on hda1 with a FAT32 > > partition for Windows apps on hdb1. HDB2 is swap. I want to keep the 6 > > gig hda1 with Windows just for a few educational games my kids still use > > that wouldn't run on XP, but I want to use hdb1 for Gentoo. > > > > I have never put two versions of Linux on one computer. I want to keep > > hdb3 for my use while installing Gentoo on hdb1. Is this do-able? Are > > there any pitfalls to watch out for? > > There are a lot of "gotchas" to multi-booting x86 machines; the > architecture just wasn't designed for it. I'd say the answer is a > qualified "yes, it should work." But you should expect to spend some > quality time with this and have complete back-ups, and know how to > restore them, if there's anything you want to save. That's the only > pitfall you really have to worry about. Back the data up or consider > it lost when you start. >
And here's the alternate opinion. I've never backed anything up, and I only lost the system one time 4 years back when a FreeBSD install ate my drive. [ sidebar: FreeBSD disk slices are just downright wierd. ] That being said, the key to success is to have a recovery CDROM (Knoppix is good) at hand and a printout of your effective grub.conf. I currently have gentoo (updated since time immemorial), WinXP, Fedora FC3, CentOS, and Debian Testing on my disks. Gentoo and WinXP, of course, are permanent. When you go to install FC3, CentOS, Debian (and others), the installer wants to install grub pointing to the grub.conf on its partition. This is fine and dandy. Once you have booted the new distro, mount the partition that contains /boot/grub/grub.conf (or menu.lst if you're ancient like Debian <grin>) for your reference partition, then edit the current active boot/grub/grub.conf (or menu.lst) and add the entries from your reference partition. Piece of cake. One gotcha: be sure to remember which partition contains the active grub.conf!!!! Once I decided to remove a partition to install another distro, but I forgot that that partition was the active grub.conf. No bootie until I used the recovery CDROM. Be sure to read that last paragraph until you have it memorized. Debian thinks its smart enough to create a grub.conf with all your distros, but unfortunately the result is halffast. The grub entries only have a kernel entry, but the aforementioned distros (and even gentoo if you use the accursed genkernel) require an initrd to boot (kernel doesn't have enough builtin functions to support booting without help). Another sidebar: I once ran for a year or more with a /boot partition and grub.conf on my Windows disk, since it was the only area of the disk that didn't change frequently. Grub doesn't really care. Just don't defrag the Windows disk. HTH, -- Collins -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
