Multi - Boot recomendation

[roche]

Hello,

I am going to install in my machine Windows + Several Distributions (Sarge + Ubuntu)


I want to hear some advices about the partitions that I need. My Hard Disk space is 60 Gb

I am thinking use for windows 10 Gb, For Debian 20 G distribuited in 3 partitions for (/,/home,/usr), Ubuntu 3 partitions (/,/home,/usr)

Somewhere I read that is good to have a partition for /boot in order to allocate all the kernels, files and others stuff for all the distributions ? Is that Correct?

It saw like I can share /home among the Linux Distributions but I am not very sure.


Per every system Do I need to have Primary Partitions or they can be located in extenderd partitions?

I dont want to rewrite one distribution or mess up the the boot files,

Can someone give an advice with these?


I going to use Grub.



Thanks

[Schotty]

Go windows/one linux and use parallels or vmware to run the rest. With that kind of space its gonna get painful do to a tri boot. with the overhead that many distros and windows has, by the time you get done installing all of them, you will probably have 7-10 GB only to use per OS.

At least that will allow you to move off the unused vm and save it on an external drive or whatnot if you dont plan to use it for a bit.

But as for an idea if I were to do it ....

Using win2K (not xp, eats up too much space) and Debian and Ubuntu:

hda1 win2K 15GB
hda2 / (etx3,deb) 10GB
hda3 / (ext3,sarge)10GB
hda4 extended
hda5 /mnt/data (ext3 or something of the sort that can be shared across all OS's. Yes windows can do reiser and ext) 24GB
hda6 swap 1GB

Give or take that would work well for the time being. Remember one os is much easier to manage. You would be best off using whatever primary OS you want and going VM for the rest. My mac and desktop are like that and its a hella lot easier to use every distro. Parallels is $50 for a dual lic, win+lin key.

HTH

[roche]

Go windows/one linux and use parallels or vmware to run the rest. With that kind of space its gonna get painful do to a tri boot. with the overhead that many distros and windows has, by the time you get done installing all of them, you will probably have 7-10 GB only to use per OS.

Thanks for the advice !

[debianfoo]

Hello,
I am going to install in my machine Windows + Several Distributions (Sarge + Ubuntu)

please see this post and my answer about the sizes of your partitions.
http://www.openfree.org/forums/showthread.php?t=12922

plus my /boot/grub/menu.lst file edited with other entries for multi-boot

You should first resize your Windows part (to the minimum you can) for this you need the cd http://sysresccd or use a live suse cd (with qtparted) or live knoppix.

You can install the last debian: etch
you can install debian 1st, letting it take care of Windows (it will add the entry to start windows in its /boot/grub/menu.lst)
see below extract from menu.lst on my laptop:
.................................................. ....................................
## ## End Default Options ##

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-5-686
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-5-686 root=/dev/hda3 ro
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.18-5-686
savedefault

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/hda1
title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1
# lockold=false
.................................................. ....................................

All you'll need to do, once you've installed debian is later go on and install whichever other linux flavor of your choice, and asa that new install reboots, copy the /boot/grub/menu.lst of ubuntu or /boot/grub/grub.conf of Fedora ... and use their own entry to add it to the debian /boot/grub/menu.lst to allow debian to start the following linux flavors:
--- you'll also need to update that same menu.lst each time your other systems have updated their versions, otherwise you would still start the same old version of your other systems.....

a new entry to debian menu.lst :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.

# fedora core 6 on /dev/hda2

splashimage=(hd0,1)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.6.22.9-61.fc6) (/dev/hda2)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.9-61.fc6 ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.22.9-61.fc6.img

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15-29-amd64-generic /dev/hdc12
root (hd1,11)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.15-29-amd64-generic root=/dev/hdc12 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-29-amd64-generic
savedefault
boot
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
voila, hope you'll enjoy linux as much as we all do.