Dual booting: Ubuntu LTS and openSUSE 12.1
 

Hi,

I am going to dual boot the following two:

Ubuntu LTS 10.04 Lucid Lynx i386 (32 bit)
openSUSE 12.1 x86_64

Said that, hard disk capacity is 250 GB
Processor supports 64 bit
RAM 2 GB


Currently: All back up taken, entire disk ready for play

Now, doubts:

Can one please elaborate in details about the above? The querries:

1. Ubuntu LTS has GRUB 2 while openSUSE 12.1 has GRUB LEGACY (GRUB 1), so which to install first so that the main boot loader works according to that...?


2. Suppose I install Ubuntu first, should I make 3 partitions as follows:

/root
/boot
/swap

3. Editing /boot/grub/menu.lst file through Ubuntu LTS would make changes in the file of menu.lst of openSUSE too? Or how would it work....


Can one explain these confusing geeky matter....?

Thanks.

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Dual booting: Ubuntu LTS and openSUSE 12.1
 

On Sun, 2011-11-27 at 11:53 -0500, LinuxIsOne wrote:

> Now, doubts:
>
> Can one please elaborate in details about the above? The querries:
>
> 1. Ubuntu LTS has GRUB 2 while openSUSE 12.1 has GRUB LEGACY (GRUB 1), so
> which to install first so that the main boot loader works according to
> that...?
>
> 2. Suppose I install Ubuntu first, should I make 3 partitions as follows:
>
> /root
> /boot
> /swap
>
No, /swap, /, and /home.

> 3. Editing /boot/grub/menu.lst file through Ubuntu LTS would make changes
> in the file of menu.lst of openSUSE too? Or how would it work....
>
> Can one explain these confusing geeky matter....?


What I've done in the past is just install the distro which uses grub 2
first and then install the one which uses grub legacy second and specify
that no boot loader at all be used. This is fairly easy to do with
openSUSE's excellent installer (under "Extras" on the boot configuration
screen if memory serves). Then reboot to the grub 2 distro and sudo
update-grub: the grub legacy distro will be found and added
to /boot/grub.cfg automatically.

Any number of distros can share the same swap space and it is easy to
have a large common data space and small home partitions with common
stuff like Music, Documents, and Downloads connected with symlinks.
I've currently got Ubuntu, Mint, Sabayon and openSUSE on this machine,
all sharing the same swap and data. If I can do it, it's not hard.


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pongo pan
Sun, 27 Nov 2011 09:22:32 -0800
Aurelius up 40 min, 1 user, load average: 0.02, 0.08, 0.19
Linux 3.0.0-12-generic
Linux Mint 12 Lisa, GNOME Shell 3.2.1




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Dual booting: Ubuntu LTS and openSUSE 12.1
 

LinuxIsOne wrote:
> I am going to dual boot the following two:
>
> Ubuntu LTS 10.04 Lucid Lynx i386 (32 bit)
> openSUSE 12.1 x86_64
>
> Can one please elaborate in details about the above? The querries:
>
> 1. Ubuntu LTS has GRUB 2 while openSUSE 12.1 has GRUB LEGACY (GRUB
> 1), so which to install first so that the main boot loader works
> according to that...?

The GRUB version which you install last in the MBR will be the relevant
one.

> 2. Suppose I install Ubuntu first, should I make 3 partitions as
> follows:
>
> /root
> /boot
> /swap

I don't know the requirements of Opensuse, but it can probably live in a
single partition. Then I would suggest to use one common swap partition
and root partitions for the two individual operating systems. I don't
think a separate boot partition would make sense, unless you want to use
LVM or RAID. And if you need a boot partition, I think it would be a
good idea to not use a common boot partition for both operationg
systems.

> 3. Editing /boot/grub/menu.lst file through Ubuntu LTS would make
> changes in the file of menu.lst of openSUSE too? Or how would it
> work....

It would only make changes to the Opensuse file menu.lst because Ubuntu
doesn't use it. However I would suggest to install Opensuse first and
then install Ubuntu afterwards with GRUB2 in the MBR. Ubuntu should find
the Opensuse installation and put it in the config file of the boot
loader. Then you can select the wanted OS from the boot menu and you
don't have to manually edit anything. Only if you get a new opensuse
kernel, you would run the command

sudo update-grub

in a terminal to boot with the right Opensuse kernel.


Nils

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Dual booting: Ubuntu LTS and openSUSE 12.1
 

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Pongo A. Pan <pongo_pan@fastmail.us> wrote:

> No, /swap, /, and /home.

> What I've done in the past is just install the distro which uses grub 2
> first and then install the one which uses grub legacy second and specify
> that no boot loader at all be used. This is fairly easy to do with
> openSUSE's excellent installer (under "Extras" on the boot configuration
> screen if memory serves). Then reboot to the grub 2 distro and sudo
> update-grub: the grub legacy distro will be found and added
> to /boot/grub.cfg automatically.

> Any number of distros can share the same swap space and it is easy to
> have a large common data space and small home partitions with common
> stuff like Music, Documents, and Downloads connected with symlinks.
> I've currently got Ubuntu, Mint, Sabayon and openSUSE on this machine,
> all sharing the same swap and data. If I can do it, it's not hard.

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 12:29 PM, Nils Kassube <kassube@gmx.net> wrote:

> The GRUB version which you install last in the MBR will be the relevant
> one.

> I don't know the requirements of Opensuse, but it can probably live in a
> single partition. Then I would suggest to use one common swap partition
> and root partitions for the two individual operating systems. I don't
> think a separate boot partition would make sense, unless you want to use
> LVM or RAID. And if you need a boot partition, I think it would be a
> good idea to not use a common boot partition for both operationg
> systems.

> It would only make changes to the Opensuse file menu.lst because Ubuntu
> doesn't use it. However I would suggest to install Opensuse first and
> then install Ubuntu afterwards with GRUB2 in the MBR. Ubuntu should find
> the Opensuse installation and put it in the config file of the boot
> loader. Then you can select the wanted OS from the boot menu and you
> don't have to manually edit anything. Only if you get a new opensuse
> kernel, you would run the command

> sudo update-grub

> in a terminal to boot with the right Opensuse kernel.

Okay I try these options and then see the results, come back a little
later.. try and play with these.....at the wrost if would have any
problem, would then wipe the whole drive and install only Ubuntu LTS!

Thanks.

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Dual booting: Ubuntu LTS and openSUSE 12.1
 

On Mon, 2011-11-28 at 06:00 -0500, LinuxIsOne wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Pongo A. Pan <pongo_pan@fastmail.us> wrote:
>

> > Any number of distros can share the same swap space and it is easy to
> > have a large common data space and small home partitions with common
> > stuff like Music, Documents, and Downloads connected with symlinks.
> > I've currently got Ubuntu, Mint, Sabayon and openSUSE on this machine,
> > all sharing the same swap and data. If I can do it, it's not hard.
>
> Hi,
>
> Can you tell me all the steps how to do? Like from the starting like
> making this /dev/sda1 and then for /dev/sda2...etc...etc... from each
> step exactly as you did, I would try to do in my PC. It supports 64
> bit processor.
>
Returned to the list as this is clearly on-topic. Please don't send me
private emails.

Partitioning is a big subject and the best way to learn about it is to
play around with Patrick Verner's Parted Magic (FOSS from
www.partedmagic.com) on a test-bed computer.

I made my current testing setup with a 1 TB and a 500 GB hard disk with
all of the 1 TB disk in an extended partition, divided into several
virtual partitions for data, encrypted data,
compressed-old-data-I'll-likely-never-need-again, etc.. The 500 GB disk
has a primary partition for swap and the rest is an extended partition
with four virtual partitions for the four distros I'm currently
evaluating, four fairly small /home partitions, and a comfortably large
partition for /tmp which is shared among them. I find it is easier to
do this before I install anything; the partitioning utilities which come
with installers vary in quality and understandability; Partition Magic
is easy and terrific.

I made descriptive labels for each partition. This helps when
modifying /etc/fstab. All of this is super easy with Parted Magic. It
helps to have a printed list of your partitions when working: "parted
--list > parts.list" makes a file you can print out.

Then I installed the distros, being careful to assign *everything* to a
mount point: e.g., when installing Ubuntu, I assigned the root
directories of Sabayon, SUSE, and Mint to mount points
like /sabsys, /susesys and /mintsys and the corresponding homes to mount
points like /sabhome, /susehome, and /minthome. This way the roots and
homes of each are available to all of the others. I share a /tmp without
apparent problems. I also assign mount points to my various /data
partitions on the 1TB disk. To avoid having to mess with fstab, prevent
each installation from re-formatting its / partition as this changes the
UUID!

Distros using grub 2 find each other and co-exist happily. As it
happens, I installed openSUSE last in this case and simply told it to
use no boot loader at all and then ran update-grub from Ubuntu later to
add it to the boot menu. I use the grub version from Ubuntu in the boot
tracks of the first hard disk since right now it seems to work the best:
"grub-install /dev/sda" will do it.

The rest is easy: remove directories like Music, Documents and .mozilla
from the /home/yourname folder and symlink them to the correspondingly
named directories in your common data partition for each distro.
Something like "ln -s /data/.mozilla" does it. You can use the same
log-on name and UID for each distro without conflicts. Be aware though
that some distros still start UIDs at 500 not 1000 (looking at you,
Fedora), so watch for this.

At some point you may want to change the setup. This means you will
have to learn the fine points of modifying fstab in each distro and
using the blkid program to get the UUIDs for partitions.

There are other ways to do this, probably better and more elegant ways,
but this works for me. Needless to say, this is not a computer I do
anything vital on. Happily, I've perfected my utility of futility to
the point that I'm not expected to do anything important anyway.

--
pongo pan
Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:32:05 -0800
Aurelius up 17:27, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.03, 0.05
Linux 3.0.0-13-generic
Ubuntu 11.10, unity 4.24.0



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Dual booting: Ubuntu LTS and openSUSE 12.1
 

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Pongo A. Pan <pongo_pan@fastmail.us> wrote:


Partitioning is a big subject and the best way to learn about it is to

play around with Patrick Verner's Parted Magic (FOSS from

www.partedmagic.com) on a test-bed computer.



I made my current testing setup with a 1 TB and a 500 GB hard disk with

all of the 1 TB disk in an extended partition, divided into several

virtual partitions for data, encrypted data,

compressed-old-data-I'll-likely-never-need-again, etc.. *The 500 GB disk

has a primary partition for swap and the rest is an extended partition

with four virtual partitions for the four distros I'm currently

evaluating, four fairly small /home partitions, and a comfortably large

partition for /tmp which is shared among them. *I find it is easier to

do this before I install anything; the partitioning utilities which come

with installers vary in quality and understandability; Partition Magic

is easy and terrific.



I made descriptive labels for each partition. *This helps when

modifying /etc/fstab. *All of this is super easy with Parted Magic. *It

helps to have a printed list of your partitions when working: "parted

--list > parts.list" makes a file you can print out.



Then I installed the distros, being careful to assign *everything* to a

mount point: e.g., when installing Ubuntu, I assigned the root

directories of Sabayon, SUSE, and Mint to mount points

like /sabsys, /susesys and /mintsys and the corresponding homes to mount

points like /sabhome, /susehome, and /minthome. *This way the roots and

homes of each are available to all of the others. I share a /tmp without

apparent problems. *I also assign mount points to my various /data

partitions on the 1TB disk. *To avoid having to mess with fstab, prevent

each installation from re-formatting its / partition as this changes the

UUID!



Distros using grub 2 find each other and co-exist happily. *As it

happens, I installed openSUSE last in this case and simply told it to

use no boot loader at all and then ran update-grub from Ubuntu later to

add it to the boot menu. *I use the grub version from Ubuntu in the boot

tracks of the first hard disk since right now it seems to work the best:

"grub-install /dev/sda" will do it.



The rest is easy: remove directories like Music, Documents and .mozilla

from the /home/yourname folder and symlink them to the correspondingly

named directories in your common data partition for each distro.

Something like "ln -s /data/.mozilla" does it. *You can use the same

log-on name and UID for each distro without conflicts. *Be aware though

that some distros still start UIDs at 500 not 1000 (looking at you,

Fedora), so watch for this.



At some point you may want to change the setup. *This means you will

have to learn the fine points of modifying fstab in each distro and

using the blkid program to get the UUIDs for partitions.



There are other ways to do this, probably better and more elegant ways,

but this works for me. *Needless to say, this is not a computer I do

anything vital on. *Happily, I've perfected my utility of futility to

the point that I'm not expected to do anything important anyway.

Would have to understand all this..... a lot! Try......

Thanks

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