Adding a distro beside an existing distro

This question is mainly for danleff since he has a lot of experience in this area, but I welcome any advice the rest of you may want to give.

I have a 120 gig HD, and the first half of it is being used by Fedora Core one. I've seen enough of Mandrake 10 to want to add it to the second half of my HD which is presently empty. How do I do this without Mandrake overwriting my Fedora partitions? I would like to add Mandrake 10 yet when I boot to it, have it access my existing /home partition rather than it using a new one. I've never even attempted any of this before so please talk as though I am "special." Thanks!

Well from experiences in trying to do a dual boot with both fedora and redhat 9.0 i know you have to specially configure the boot loader and there is a special way to put mandrake on as well im going to try that tonight and any results ill share

All Grub (or LILO) is doing is 'pointing' to the bootable partition, so, you should be able to configure Grub (I know you like that) by adding a Mdk/hda1 entry after your existing Fedora/hda0 entry. I haven't used Grub a lot, so, you probably know the editing details better than I do ;-). I've done this with LILO and a win/linux setup, but, not with 2 linux distros. Still, the theory is the same. ;(

This thread is pertinent:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/8/2001/12/1/9649

yeah thats what i been trying to do as well but to no avail

i had it set like this and only windows would boot

hda1 Dos NTFS (XP)
Hda2 Fedora Ext3 defined as /boot also tried as / /home
hda3 Redhat 9.0 defined as /boot also tried as / /home

ill look around for some documentation see if i can find anything

Sure, but you are using Grub?

This is the issue as I see it. Having Mandrake set not to overwrite the existing redhat partitions is easy.

When you go to do the Mandrake install, at the install prompt (when the 1st cd boots to the install prompt), type in expert, then hit the enter key.

This will allow Mandrake to let you make all the decisions about the install, as well as customize the packages that you want to install.

Where this is important, is when you get to the partitioning scheme.

Choose the option to allow you to manually set the partitions.

If you allow Mandrake to do a normal install, then choose to allow manual partitioning, it still will try to overwrite the first linux partition that it finds.

Choosing expert mode, prevents this from happening.

Set up your custom partitioning scheme, or your free space.

This is the part that I am not sure of. The home directory in some distros has app. programs attached to it. Wheteher this will cause a problem, I don't know.

I would allow some space to be allocated to a home directory and complete the install.

Then, once the install is done, edit the fstab in Mandrake and change the home directory line to match the one in RedHat.

The other option, or course, is to add the RedHat home directory to fstab in Mandrake and allow Mandrake to keep it's own home directory.

Again, since apps. are housed in the home directory, I would leave the RedHat directory exclusive to Redhat and allow one for Mandrake, then just add the home directory for RedHat to Mandrake's fstab.

This way, you can share data files in the Home directory between the two.

However, I think Mandrake will automatically set up other Linux partitions for you, so look to see if it is not already added to the fstab in Mandrake before making the fstab changes.

I got Mandrake 10 CE this morning and am home with strep throat, so I thought about doing the install today.

For dual booting, I just choose to install the newest distro's grub or lilo to a floppy, until I test it out.

Of course, this depends on your system. If you already have multiple distros on the system, then you may want to retain your old bootloader and just add to it. This way, you don't take the chance of loosing your other distros, if mandrake doesn't automatically add them to grub or lilo.
So, booting from a floppy is safer..just add the lines to your existing lilo or grub when your satisfied all is well with the install.


I will also let you know what I find out.

i did some research although danleff covered pretty much everything i thought i would post these links

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/8/2003/04/1/52903
http://www.pycs.net/lateral/stories/23.html
http://www.wwnet.net/~stevelim/booting.html
www.linuxtransfer.com/ www.linuxtransfer.com/ http://www.linuxtransfer.com/h/installation_multiplelinuxdistributionsononemachine.pdf download the pdf (PDF)
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-dboot.html (*semi helpful)

personally i found the pdf to be the best
most of these are to help newbies but they might help

To Danleff and Dapper Dan, as well as anyone else who has installed Mandrake 10. When I first decided to start in with Linux, I spent a couple of weeks trolling these Linux related boards. Not having installed Linux, and having very little experience at all, I had few questions, I was looking for problems that others had. I eventually decided on Debian, because it was the one that I found had the fewest problems mentioned. I downloaded it three times before giving up because I couldn't install it, most likely because I had no idea about md5. I started going through distros, Red Hat 9.0, then Mandrake 9.0. Mandrake installed perfectly, so I just stopped at that point. When I heard of Morphix and Knoppix, I decided to check them out. When I discovered that they were based on Debian, I was excited! I installed Morphix to my hard drive, used it for a while, then tried the same with Knoppix. I liked the results with Knoppix better than with Morphix, so that is where I am now. What I would like to know, is, once you have checked out Mandrake 10, how do you think it stacks up against Debian? How is the installation program? Is it as good as or better than the one for 9.0? (I fear it a little, because of the negative experiences I had with both 9.1 and 9.2.) How well does the upgrade progs work? are they as good as apt-get? Is there any diference, good or bad, with RPM? In short would it make my system as good as, or better than Debian. (I am not a distro fanatic, just a Linux one.) Thanks! 8)

The only reason I prefer Grub over Lilo is because of problems I formerly encountered with Lilo overwriting the MBR when I was dual booting between Mdk and Windows, and it giving me a black screen with lililililililililili...etc.

I wanna tell you, that would strike fear into the heart of the most resilient Noob. ;(

Since I no longer have Windows partitions, I'm not opposed to using Lilo from Mandrake. Besides, Mdk 10 comes with a nifty utility to switch from Lilo to Grub and back if one so desires.

So if I install Mdk 10, and create a / and a /home partition, then edit the Mdk fstab to look to my /home directory which is already there under Fedora, couldn't I also tell Mandrake to install Lilo on the existing /boot partition? Would it automatically pick up and list my Fedora for a boot choice, or will I have to edit Lilo to do that?

Also, if I can edit fstab to tell Mandrake where to look for /home, can I also edit fstab to tell Mandrake to use my existing swap partition if I decide to mount it?

Am I clear on any of this or jusr rambling?? :x

danleff maybe you could pop over to my hpa220 n thread need some help with networking and i posted the exact errors thanks

SoulNothing thanks for those links!
Maillion, the only reason I'm checking out Mdk 10 so thoroughly is because I have two boxes at work running Mdk 9 that I would like to upgrade to the 2.6 kernel. I thought about going with Fedora until Mdk 10 came out, so now I might go that route since an upgrade would be preferable to a complete re-install. I think you are in great hands with Debian. If you like it and it suits your needs, I wouldn't change over to Mandrake or Fedora. You are so right about Mdk 9.1 and 9.2 sucking as compared to 9.0. That was my experience as well! So far though, Mdk 10 appears to me to be extremely promising!

Wow, lively thread!

I just installed Mandrake 10 CE. Failed to configure my network connection (via-rhine). this should not happen, since Beta did OK with it. I have to look into this.

Alsa also failed on my sound card.

The Lilo error LiLilLi.. is usually due to a geometry mismatch problem. Remember, lilo sees the partitions differently than grub.

For example, in lilo hda1 is hda1 and in Grub it is hd(0,0).

See the following;

http://sdb.suse.de/sdb/en/html/kgw_lilo_errmsg.html

Also, different distros may map differently. Believe it or not!

I also like the ability that Mandrake has to change the bootloader from Lilo to Grub and back. This helped me learn a bit about Grub.

What I found, is that Mandrake will only detect distros installed using Mandrakeś lilo.

So, for example, if I install Win XP, then Mandrake with Lilo, it picks up XP.

If I add other distros to the Mandrake lilo later on, then then Mandrake will probably pick them up on an UPGRADE.

Since I just did a fresh install, Mandrake only picked up XP, not my other distros.

The lilo that I currenlty have is from Lindows.

Mandrake picked up all of my fat32 partitions in fstab, but only ONE ext3 partition out of the five distros that I have.

So, I will have to add them by hand.

For swap, if you custom partition, you can tell Mandrake to use a former swap file, such as from a RedHat install.

Mandrake auto installed entries into the fstab for the three swap files I have on 3 seperate drives.

You can tell Mandrake to install lilo or grub on an existing boot partition, but whether it will pick up RedHat is anybodyś guess. I don know. I have mine on the MBR and it did not.

Again, if you had Mandrakeś lilo or grub previously installed and did an upgrade, it looks like it would.

Good question. If the vmlinuz and initrd entries are all in your root /boot directory, you can probably add them with the boot utility on Mandrake later on. They should show up as options.

I have them elsewhere, so this did not happen for me. I have them all in seperate sub-directories under my Lindows install, in THAT rootś boot directory.

My experience with upgrades is not good with Mandrake, They have all failed.

Since I have 2 installs of Mandrake perviously, Cooker and RC1, I am going to try an upgrade later on the cooker install, since I don use it. Iĺl let you know how it goes.

Finally, I have also tried debian and Knoppix. If you know synaptic and apt-get, itś a pretty good system, if you know how to add entires to the apt repository. You just have to make sure that you stick with the version that you have, be it woody, sarge or sid. Mixing versions is not good, unless you know a lot about dependencies.

Mandrakeś self contained package installations is very good. The issue comes up when you try to install a package that is not pure Mandrake. Additions from the repository is very good, if you know how to add them. Best example, KDE 3.2. If you download all the needed pakages and point rpmdrake to the downloaded local folder or ftp repository, OK. Just make sure that you have valid entries.

The issue comes up when you add a package that is not normmally included in Mandrake, or a newer version than what was originally designed for your version, say cooker. This is when dependency problems make you search for updated packages that are needed to satisfy the newer packages needs.

I going to get some rest now...later!

Two issues with that... Each Distro is more or less compatable with 'your' hardware, and, which package management system is most effective and less prone to break. That's why we all may have different experiences even with the same Distro.

Mdk 9.0 was my first permanent install, and proved to be a great Distro, but, later releases went downhill fast .. The first Mepis build I tried was great, but the last release gave my system fits... Linux is a very complex virtual machine... lots of variables so YMMV 'greatly!

So far I've personally found the Debian apt to be superior to rpm , but, everybody's starting to work on improving their package delivery system, so that situation could change.


I agree, I'll go for what works, but, I think I'll let these other guys go through the process before I jump .

Yes, many of us remember that... I assume that you know how to fix it (now that you have no need) ;-).

Yes, I'd forgotten that.


Very true, I remember SuSi mapping my Linux boot as hdb5 instead of the hdb6 that Mdk did... Almost screwed me over good ;-).
Also 'logically' the sequence should be 1234, but, we all know that isn't so ;( It isn't Grub or LILO that determines the volume tag since it's already used when you use the format utility. Not sure what determines this?


The KDE LILO manager allows you to do a search/refresh and will list 'everything' . From what I've seen, LILO is now better integrated into Linux than is Grub... Is that a good thing ;( ???

I was considering going up to kernel 2.6, so that was the main reason I was thinking of Mandrake 10. I am still considering the effort of trying to upgrade from whatever kernel I have to 2.6, but I'm kind of wondering how. I think the one I've got now is 2.2, because on my last Knoppix install, all I did was a dist-upgrade, and I think that just puts in all the woody packages. (If I'm wrong, let me know!) I really don't care what distro I have these days. I'm doing well with Debian and apt (haven't reinstalled Synaptic yet), so I'm also kind of waiting for that free CD for Knoppix version 3.4... 8)

Most likely Knoppix is at sarge. If I remember, it may be a combination of stable and sarge, that the Knoppix development team came up with.

How to tell is look at your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

The entries will have a qualifier in them.

Woody will be designated as "stable"

Sarge as "testing"

Sid as "unstable"

Upgrading woody's kernel is a pain. I found some backports for this on this web site, but they failed to be fetched.

The 2.6.x kernel, in Debian, depends on Coreutils, which is not readily available in woody. At least I could not find it.

In Knoppix, as root in a console, do uname -r

This will tell you the kernel version, probably 2.4.xx.

That might be wise. I'll update as soon as Knoppix or Mepis go to 2.6. Shouldn't be long now.