On 10/29/06, Bart Whiteley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 10/29/06, Michael Torrie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Sun, 2006-10-29 at 21:35 -0700, Shane Hathaway wrote: > > So LVM on the root partition is working for you? I've heard that's > > problematic. It should be possible using initramfs, but have the > > distros actually finished the work required? > > > > You might try installing without LVM. Then you could use gparted from a > > CD to reclaim the wasted space. > > One multi-boot tip I have with grub is to install each distro's grup > config to the partition itself, rather than the MBR. Then have one > distro in charge of the MBR. Set up grub entries to chainload the other > grubs on the partitions. This is what I do to dual-boot solaris and > fedora. The reason I do this is so that respective kernel upgrades can > add entries to their respective grub.conf files. If you boot all > distros from the same grub you'll have to always remember to change the > one grub.conf file.Yeah. What he said. I have _all_ of my distros install grub into the boot sector of the root partition, rather than the MBR. Then I have another GRUB (stage{1,2} and menu.list) on another non-system partition (such as /home) that is installed into the MBR. For example, assume you have the following: hda1: Windows hda2: swap hda3: extended hda5: SUSE hda6: Fedora hda7: Ubuntu hda8: /home In such a situation, you'd probably want to install Windows first. Then install one of the linux distros, say SUSE. Install with root partition at hda5 and /home at hda8. Install GRUB into the MBR just this one time only. Then, after you boot into the SUSE system the first time, do the following: - cp -a /boot /home/ - grub-install --root-directory=/home /dev/hda - grub-install /dev/hda5 This installs the grub files from /home/boot/grub into the MBR, and the files from /boot/grub into the boot sector of /dev/hda5. Next, edit /home/boot/grub/menu.lst. Change all of the entries to chainloader directives. Like this: default 1 timeout 8 title Legacy OS chainloader (hd0,0)+1 title SUSE chainloader (hd0,4)+1 title Fedora chainloader (hd0,5)+1 title Ubuntu chainloader (hd0,6)+1 Now, whenever you install a Linux distro, make sure you install grub into the boot sector of the root partition, rather than the MBR. If you forget to do this, or if the distro's installer doesn't allow this (I think Ubuntu does not), no big deal. It's easy to fix. After booting into the distro that clobbered the MBR, repeat these commands: - grub-install --root-directory=/home /dev/hda - grub-install /dev/<root_dev> /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
I think I've finally got everything together with some amount of functionality. For the time being I'm using one central menu.lst (I will try & match your steps above soon). The trouble I'm running into now is with file permissions. Again, I'm trying to share a /home between each distro (in an attempt to keep my settings & profiles mobile between distros). I find that when I login I get permission denied errors & GDM craps out on me.
From what I can find it looks like each distro handles the user/group
a bit differently. What suggestions do you have for allowing each distro to share the /home and allow settings & profiles to be loaded on each? The only solution I've used so far is to simply login as root.. not the best. -- Christer Edwards Internet Marketing Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] 800-743-9833 ext. 6040 /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
