[ubuntu-za] ubuntu-za Digest, Vol 67, Issue 43

[Peter Nel]

>
>
> Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:55:42 +0200
> From: Johan Scheepers <johansche at telkomsa.net>
> To: ubuntu-za <ubuntu-za at lists.ubuntu.com>,
>        ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: [ubuntu-za] Installing 3 distro's on same drive.
> Message-ID: <4DADA26E.8000200 at telkomsa.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Good day,
>
> If I intend to install 3 distro's on one drive, but would like to find
> out if it is possible / feasible ?
>
> Make 4 partitions on drive.
>
> Should they be all primary. I understand linux can handle that?
>
> For instance..
>
> First partition..        Ubuntu
> second partition..    Fedora
> third partition..        Centos
> fourth partition..      Swap.
>
> Now..should I install them in that sequence then Centos would control
> the MBR ?
>
> So now what happens when ..  say I replace  any of the first 2 with
> another/later distro ?
>
> What can be done should the MBR go bad to boot the distro'S.
>
> Some advice will be appreciated
> Thanks
> Johan S
>
>
If I were you i'd save my primary partitions, since you can only have 4 of
them per physical drive, while you can have unlimited extended partitions
per primary partition.
Windows, for one, can't install to anything but a primary partition. Linux
doesn't care.

So you can reserve unused primary partitions like this:

1) Primary Partition #1:
- Extended Partition 1.1: swap (share this between all distros)
- Extended Partition 1.2: ext4 (ubuntu)
- Extended Partition 1.3: ext4 (fedora)
- Extended Partition 1.4: ext4 (centos)
2..4) save Primary Partitions #2..#4 for something that really needs primary
partition (e.g. 1xwindows & 1xdedicated partition for fixed page file, aka
virtual memory, aka swap (use 64-bit blocks, if you're interested in doing
this) -- not that i use windows, but i've done it like this before).

Do you really need to install the OS's to the drive in order to test them
out? Would a LiveCD not be sufficient, like ubuntu's main install disk? I
don't know if Fedora and CentOS have live CD's.
Have you considered debian? Would be a little bit easier to work if you know
ubuntu (both fedora and centos are Red Hat (.rpm) based)

-- 
Péter Nel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-za/attachments/20110420/11ad3a74/attachment.html>