On 19/08/12 20:36, Dražen wrote:
Hi all,
is there a way to run the development Ubuntu version dual boot, but by
using the OS installer (and other related stuff) from the stable version
so that there is little or no chance of it damaging other partitions
with the stable production installation?
I'd like to run an Ubuntu+1 version for development and testing
purposes. Now, I prefer having a dual boot installation to VMs, because
of the ability to test on actual drivers (which are often the cause of
why I want to hack something in the first place). After reading the
description of this method on the wiki page
(https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UsingDevelopmentReleases/OtherWays) it seems it
has a major drawback because a bug inside the installer (or, I guess,
parts of the OS related to mounting other partitions etc.) could cause
the loss of data on the production installation, which is quite
unacceptable even with backups, as it takes a lot of time to recover and
get the system back to a usable state (especially if you have other OSs
alongside Ubuntu).
What I'm wondering is if there is a way to run a development version,
but with certain crucial parts that could tamper with other partitions
taken from a stable release, where there is a higher level of confidence
that it won't cause data loss on other partitions. This would in an
essence be a sort of Ubuntu+1 installation sandboxed inside a single
partition.
You can do this:
1. create the target partition and mount it somewhere;
2. use debootstrap(8) like this: `debootstrap quantal /somewhere';
3. chroot into the /somewhere and install the tasksel package;
4. run `tasksel install ubuntu-desktop';
5. update grub's configuration as you like.
This is basically what the Ubuntu installer does. You'll get a perfectly
functioning Ubuntu Desktop without running the live cd.
If something like this doesn't exist, would it be very complicated to
create as, for example, an automatically generated remix? I think it
would encourage many people to try out the development version on their
own machines, detecting driver-related errors (which get masked by using
VMs) much sooner. Also, it would allow developers to run a development
version straight on their bare metal production machine, which would be
a performance boost during their work.
Dražen Lučanin
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