On 9/13/2025 6:47 PM, Felix Miata wrote:
home user composed on 2025-09-13 17:40 (UTC-0600):
Does it matter which distro I install first?
It certainly should not, but you may save some grief by installing the one you
prefer last, so that when it takes boot control, you need only make the other
give
up attempting to regain control, instead of having to make a manual switch back
after the second installation. Or, you could just ignore which is in control,
and
use the BBS hotkey each time a choice to the non-default is wished. With BBS
hotkey usage, it shouldn't matter whether one installation knows anything about
booting another.
The first part makes sense.
"BBS hotkey"? What's that? I don't see any keys on my keyboard
labelled anything remotely suggesting "BBS".
By default, Fedora uses the "btrfs" file system, right?
By default. Default != mandatory. It supports both btrfs and ext4.
By default, Ubuntu uses the "ext4" file system, right?
By default. Default != mandatory. It supports both btrfs and ext4.
Here, too, this is a major part of why I'm doing this thread. With no
install instructions, I don't know how to control which file systems are
used. I don't even know if both distros have to use the same file
system, though my first guess is that they do if they're on the same
desktop.
Is this going to cause any problems or affect the installs?
I'd rethink your choices. Ubuntu is vastly different from Fedora. Why did you
make
these two particular choices? You might find it easier if Fedora is your first
choice to choose a second distro that also defaults to BTRFS.
I've been using Fedora for over 12 years. It's "cutting edge". I like
it. It's definitely my first choice.
But in those 12+ years, there have been severe problems, both with
hardware and with the OS's. I was glad to have something to fall back
on. yeah, even windows-7. I've learned the importance of having
fallbacks where I reasonably can. I plan to keep this windows-10
desktop around as a fallback should the new desktop really fail.
I read a few on-line articles about other distros. I thought it best to
limit the field to the most widely used distros. Ubuntu seems to be #1
in that respect. Ubuntu was also described as easier to maintain than
most. Ubuntu also seemed to have more "apps" available than most.
Finally, I thought it best if the 2 distros were more rather than less
different, so the odds of both going bad at the same time would be lower.
My choice of Ubuntu for #2 is not final. You've given me one more thing
to consider.
It might make sense to put off any second choice until after you've used the
first
for a while. Gnu/Linux operating systems are mainly just hosts for working
environments, and most of the bigger distros offer most of those same
environments. You don't need a second distro to try another environment. Login
managers facilitate switching back and forth among the installed choices.
As a 30+ year multibooter, I find multibooting more than enough complication
that
I refuse to adopt the mini-OS that is BTRFS and its special tool and feature
sets.
I have only one instance of it, on an /old/ laptop given me with an installation
already using it. My other several hundred working Gnu/Linux installations
across
40+ PCs are all on EXT3 or EXT4.
I've had some reservation about btrfs also, though I know little about
it. The copy-on-write does not seem useful, not for me anyway. If I'm
copying something, then either I'll be modifying one of the two copies,
or the destination of the copy is somewhere off the desktop. So I'd
rather have the duplication done up front.
Nearly all my installations going back 20+ years are NET installations. I don't
see much point in downloading a whole DVD iso when half of what's on it is going
to be replaced with newer versions from online repos during the installation
process. There's little difference other than where the time is spent during the
combined processes of preparing to install by download and burn, and installing.
If you will be using the same installation media for more than one installation,
starting with a full "DVD" iso can save some time, but when doing pre-release
installations as I do, repeats are subject to need for newer versions, making
NET,
or even less, clearly make more sense.
For "or less", I go further than mere NET. Since I'm multibooting anyway,
there's
no compelling need to download any kind of iso once the first Gnu/Linux
installation has been made, because the installation kernel and initrd from the
NET installer from any decent distro can be downloaded and then loaded from the
already installed bootloader to start the second and other subsequent
installations. The advantage of full "DVD" (or CD) live version isos is being
able
to use them to test drive a distro before deciding whether to install.
... shutting down for the night. I'll resume late tomorrow or sometime
Monday.
--
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