Installing more linux distroes !?

[allsa8]

Hi all ..

i have installed winxp installed now ,
I want to install threee linux distribution , just for testing and playing .
So , I think i don't have to make for each distro a swap partition , only one shared , right ??

ok .. actually i installed them . but i couln't boot the others !!
Suse linux was the last one to install , i chose to install the boot loader ,it did'nt give me the option to boot the other linux distroes !
i try edithing the grubconfig , but i failed because it can' t load the init , i'm sure that i type correctly !

so just give me the instruction as if the were the first time for me :)

thank you all

[deathadder]

If you are going to use SuSE to load the other distro's I believe that you need to copy the vmlinuz or bzImage files from the other distro's to your SuSE boot parition and then supply the root partition and kernel image for the other distro's in your grub.conf file

[allsa8]

Oh .. dont tell me that .. this is complicated for me :)

ok .. what if i installed the grub for every distro on the boot partion except the last distro installed ( i.e grub installed MBR ) then just redirect the grub to chain load the others ?!

[XiaoKJ]

We need to know whether you have a /boot partition for all the distros.

If not, install all the other distros' /boot/vmlinuz and /boot/system.map and /boot/initrd.img to SuSE's /boot partition, renamed of course. These are the kernel images. You will have to boot up these instead of chainloading them.

Get some help like grub's documents and linux FAQs. Its redundant for us to help you if you don't read the manuals, we couldn't help you!

[deathadder]

When you boot into SuSE open up a shell and change to the root user:

su -
<password>

Then make a directory where you will mount the different boot partitions for the other distro's, if you have set up individual boot partitions if not then its goin to be the root partition. For example

mkdir /mnt/TempBoot

After you have created the place mount one of the different distros boot/root partition there:

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/TempBoot

This mounts the first partition of the first hard drive to /mnt/TempBoot, if you don't know the partition layout of your hard drive use 'fdisk -l', thats a small L, to see it. If that doesn't show your partition layout then it's probably 'fdisk -l /dev/hda' if you have a second hard drive then change the 'a' to a 'b'.

Once you have mounted the boot partition copy the files that XiaoKJ said to your SuSE boot partition with

cp vmlinuz /boot/distrovmlinuz

If your not currently in the other distro's /boot change to it with 'cd /mnt/TempBoot/' or use the full path when copying the file 'cp /mnt/TempBoot/vmlinuz /boot/distovmlinuz'. You change change the name of distrovmlinuz to some thing more informative if you like :)

Once you have copied all the relevant files across you are going to have to edit your grub.conf file, I don't use grub so I can help you with that part sorry, but make sure you include the correct kernel image and root partition for each of the different distro's

HTH

[mdwatts]

Install the bootloader of the first distro in /boot or the mbr and then install the remaining distros bootloader into their own root '/' partitions.

Add entries for the other distros to the bootloader config of the first distro.

i.e. (SuSE Rescue owns Grub which is installed in /boot)

title SuSE 9.0 (Rescue)
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz-2.4.21-144-smp4G root=/dev/hda3
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd-2.4.21-144-smp4G

title SuSE 9.0 (Development)
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-144-smp4G root=/dev/hda5
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd-2.4.21-144-smp4G

title SuSE 9.0 (Development 2.6.3)
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.3-16-bigsmp root=/dev/hda5
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd-2.6.3-16-bigsmp

title SuSE 9.0 (Production)
kernel (hd1,4)/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-199-smp4G root=/dev/ataraid/d0p5
initrd (hd1,4)/boot/initrd-2.4.21-199-smp4G

[ph34r]

Just make a boot disk for each distro as you install it. Eventually, you will get tired of doing this and figure out a way to use a bootloader :)

[allsa8]

Thank you all for help ..

i read some manuals about the grub , but unfortunately when i came to apply what i read , i got nothing right !

ok..i'll flollow mdwatts's instruction because they are closer to what i read :)

[happybunny]

vmware vmware vmware

[XiaoKJ]

I was thinking you would learn the basic grub commandline and you will use the bootloader with more ease...

Ahh, nevermind