On Sun, 10 Jun 2018 10:18:24 -0400 Haines Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 12:36:02PM +0100, Simon Hobson wrote: > > > I think you may be confused about what this section is doing. You > > are telling the installer a) what to do with a disk & it's > > partitions (eg, should it format a partition), and b) where they > > should be mounted. So for your partitions on sda, you tell it NOT > > to format them and not to mount them anywhere - I certainly recall > > those being options in the Debian installer, you may need to go > > into expert mode. Alternatively, tell the installer NOT to format > > them and set a different mount point > > (eg /jessie, /jessie/boot, ...) When you set a mount point, it's > > telling the installer two things : where to mount the filesystem > > during the install, and what to put in the installed system's > > fstab. If you tell it to do nothing with the partitions/filesystems > > on sda, then they will simply be left alone - but watch put for > > grub install later on, you don't want to damage the grub that's > > already installed. So don't format the partitions on sda, don't > > mount them anywhere, and you'll end up with a new install on sdc > > that just ignores the system already on sda - but as mentioned, be > > careful when it comes to grub install time. Then (I assume through > > the system BIOS) you'll be able to boot using the old system & it's > > grub on sda, or the new system & it's grub on sdc. > > Don't underestimate my ability to get confused, especially when a > practice I've followed for years no longer works. It may be the > difficulty arises now because two of the machine's disks are for ascii > (one rc and the other stable), and jessie is on sdb. Does the conflict > over use of \ only happen if operating system versions happen to be > the same? If so, I wonder if an expert installer could be warned of > this and what to do about it. For example, the error message that > pops up could be more informative. > > In the partitioner, when I go to edit a partition, one option is to > "use as:" If I specify to use as ext4, then the additional > settings become available of whether to format the partition and set > its mount point. If instead I chose "do not use", I no longer have the > option to format and define a mount point. > > That is as you say, but your comment about watching out for GRUB later > on in the installation worries me. You warn me that I should not allow > grub to "damage" (confuse?) the grub on sda, but the installer asks a > question that I do not find to be clear. When installing GRUB and > after the installer discovers what operating systems happen to be > accessible for the installation, it tells me it is safe to install > GRUB in the mbr of the first drive, which in my case is sda. My > intent is to leave GRUB as it is on sda and to install it instead on > sdc. However, it then asks whether to install it in the mbr. To which > drive does this refer? Is it asking if I want to install GRUB in the > mbr of the first drive, sda, or is it asking simply whether to > install GRUB the mbr on whatever drive I next install GRUB? > What you are talking about doing is akin to dual-booting, just on different disks i.e. you will only be able to boot one distro. Rowland _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list [email protected] https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
