mrweb wrote:
> Hi List,
>
> Many thanks to Rusty and Anthony. :)
>
> I learned that in order to have a multi boot system the way I
> had asked, would require me to appropriately edit each of my fstabs in
> all of my systems and also my boot loaders(?), if I wanted to be able
> to boot all of them from each other.
>
> I didn't quite follow the `mount point' portions? Which leads me to
> another question or two.
As in my previous mail, the mount point is the directory where each disk or
partition will be attached.
Eg, your fstab has a line which makes sure the device /dev/cdrom is mounted at
/mnt/cdrom.
This way, when you look at the /mnt/cdrom folder, it displays the contents of
your CD drive
You can't have more than one disk or partition mounted in the same place -
otherwise, when you look in that folder, we wouldn't know what drive or
aprtition to show there.
> For simplification, so I thought, I had asked in reference to 3 OS's.
>
> What I really want is to have access to my files in all of my OS's
> from my Primary OS, this requires me to have the ability to mount
> each OS from my Primary OS.<--- This I thought was just a matter of
> editing my Primary fstab?
Yes, it is.
> I was thinking that to be able to boot all of my OS's from a system reboot
> would only require editing my grub.conf,
Grub only allows you to pick different OSs to load at boot time - it doesn't
control which OSs have access to each others disks. You probably already knew
that, but I wanted to make sure.
> after the editing of my fstab(s),
> to show that they all existed and to give them an order of preference,
> and a mount point.
Indeed.
> All of the information I have read on this subjuect always deals
> with 'DUAL BOOT' machines only, never a mention of 3 or more systems
> needing to be booted. Which has been a wee bit frustrating at times.
>
> I have a 5 OS's on my machine, my hard drive looks like this;
>
> +----------------------------------------+
> |windows|LM 7.0|LM 7.1|swap|debian|LM 7.1|
> |hda1 |hda5 |hda6 |hda7|hda8 |hda9 |
> +----------------------------------------+
Okay. Since you're unfamiliar with Linux, it seems a little odd you need so
many versions. Try dual booting Windows with a single friendly distribution
like Mandrake, and learning Linux with that.
If you decide you don't like Mandrake, you can switch to another Linux later.
And thew three Mandrake versions is just a little unusual. It seems like
you`re doing this for fun [which is fair enough] rather than for any specific
goal. Fair enough, but you might want to wait untill you know a little more
about Linux first.
> only one of which is my `Primary OS', and it is mainly this one, from
> which I wish to have desktop access to the others, just as I do to
> `windows',
AFAIK there's only one utility to give access to older style [Extended 2]
filesystems from Windows, ExploreE2FS. Is this what you are talking about?
> although it would be great to be able to boot each OS from grub
> after a reboot.
Of course. Why bother installing OSs if you can't boot to them?
> Where I am getting hung up, is on the `mount points', as ALL of my Linux
> OS's have a mount point of `/'. Perhaps I should have built them in a
> different way, but that's how I did it.
That's fine. All your Linux's have mount points of `/', but only for *tha \t
particular installations fstab'.
Eg, Your Mandrake 7.0's fstab mounts hda 5 as /, but
Your Mandrake 7.2's fstab mounts hda5 as /mnt/mandrake7.0
> :(
Cheer up!
> Currently if I do a reboot, Grub comes up and I have the option to boot
> into my Primary OS (hda9) or into windows, if I want to boot any of my
> other Linux Systems I insert the appropriate boot floppy and away I go.
> This is a bit of a pain, but it is not really a BIG concern although it
> would be good to have all of my systems, available to boot from Grub.
Indeed. Its just a matter of adding your other Linux partitions into grub, and
then *typing 'grub' to make the changes take effect.
> Thanks,
>
> mrweb
Cheers,
Mike
--
------------------------------------------
Mike MacCana Support Consultant
C Y B E R S O U R C E
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Ph : +61 3 9642 5997 Fax: +61 3 9642 5998
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