more than one distro

[Rashkae]

mike wrote:
> Ubuntu Hardy does not observe the bios settings on machines with IDE and
> SATA drives. Difficulties occur if the SATA disk is set as the primary
> active bootable disk. Ubuntu Hardy puts the IDE as /dev/sda and the SATA
> as /dev/sdb. When you boot the machine having gone through the 7 steps
> of the install process. If they are booted according to the bios
> configuration problems occur. Because the order of the drives are
> different to that of the installation environment.
> 
> 
> The problem is that Ubuntu and Fedora are using the UUID definitions
> in /etc/fstab. Which make it very difficult to trace where the problems
> are to be found. The Ubuntu forums talk of a utility called vol_id buts
> that's not any use when you need some kind of rescue disk to regain
> access to the machine and drives. The fix is to use blkid, see man blkid
> for details. Without any arguments blkid will print to stdout volume
> ID's on the system. Which can be cross referenced with the /etc/fstab.
> It might also be necessary to reinstall grub but not from the Ubuntu CD
> because of this drive organisation problem.
> 
> 
> The subject of UUID can be found on the Fedora and Ubuntu forums. Many
> contributors have complained about the ugliness of these 32 bit codes as
> partition identifiers. Any resizing or reorganisation of partitions will
> cause users problems if their distribution uses UUID as the partition
> identifiers.
> 
> 
> I missed the advanced button on the seventh step which reinstalled grub.
> So that's two reasons for thumbs down for Ubuntu. Therefore, anyone
> installing Ubuntu on a system with another existing distribution, ensure
> that you press the advanced button on the seventh step and select not to
> install a boot loader.


I'm really not understanding the problem here....

Linux kernel and Bios playing musical Hard drive device name is exactly
why UUID system is used. and because Ubuntu uses UUID, the seemingly
random changes to device name should have no effect on Ubuntu whatsoever!

The only thing to keep in mind is to always install grub on the same
drive as your /boot is located.  If you have two boots on two drives,
for a safety, install grub on each drive, then you can switch boot drive
from the BIOS boot menu if needed in a pinch.