Gary wrote: ....

M> Default in yast2 is to install LILO on a floppy, so you cannot kill M> anything. Anyway, lilo starts windows (NT, 95, 98, haven't tried 2000) M> very happily, and you don't even have to do anything, because SuSE Linux M> detects the presence of windows and creates a lilo entry for it M> automatically.

Michael, can I change the default in yast2 to load LILO from the HD instead of a floppy? It is a pain in the neck to keep putting in

yes, of course

One last question, if I may .. Can I put both x86 3.3.6 and 4 in the same install and switch back and forth if need be? Thinking here is that if one of my apps isn't working properly in v4, I can always revert back to 3.3.6.

Don't know. For apps X is X. So far I haven't heard of apps that are exceptions to this theory... -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq

Hi Mark, On Sunday, September 24, 2000, 5:13 PM, you wrote in part about "[SLE] V7 - got it - have questions": m> Convert GRUB to real lilo and during the install put lilo on a boot disk m> (always good to have) then use the floppy to get into SuSE and edit the m> lilo.conf via yast or by hand. That is how i have handled my multiple os m> installs. I once heard about someone having two lilos installed on the MBR and m> the idea scares me. Thanks so much for your input on this. Everything you say makes sense to me. Two LiLos are very scarry. W2K is different than W9x in that if the MBR screws up, you have to reinstall W2K completely (unless you made the 4 floppy disk startup tools, and hope it works) and when you do reinstall it, it doesn't save anything. Everything is gone just like a new install. -- Best regards, Gary Today's thought: Have you grepped you Penguin today? -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq

OOOPs, sorry, i forgot to attach the attachment.... here it is mark wilson wrote:

Hello Gary, Hello everyone, There seems to be a fair bit of traffic lately about multiple distributions on a single machine. I've attached a file to this mail describing how i did it for anyone who cares. Unfortunatly, i don't have a web site where i can upload it. I hope it will be of help to some of you. -- mark wilson ---------------------------- visit this site and help someone who needs you today. http://www.thehungersite.com ----------------------------- this message sent using S.u.S.E. Linux

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-- mark wilson ---------------------------- visit this site and help someone who needs you. Today. http://www.thehungersite.com ----------------------------- this message sent using S.u.S.E. Linux How I installed multiple distributions of Linux on one machine. by Mark Wilson Please read this entire document before doing anything, particularly the disclaimer found at the end. Your feedback is important. Step 1. create a /boot partition somewhere on the bootable section (below block 1024) of your first hard drive.. In my case it looks like this: Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/hda2 22578 3387 17987 16% /boot My /dev/hda is a 4.2 GB EIDE drive and all of it resides within the 1024 limit. Lucky me. As you can see, only 16% of this 22Mb partition is being used. It contains 6 different boot images for 3 different Linux distributions. Presumably, that answers the "How big should it be?" question. After this, it doesn't matter where your '/' partition is. Only the boot image (i.e. vmlinuz) must reside within the 1024 limit. Note: The root partition '/' is NOT the same as '/root'. Step 2. I installed lilo in the MBR of the first EIDE drive. This may or may not be the best solution but it works and i have had no problems what so ever with it there. If it is possible to install lilo within the /boot partition that may be a better way. However, someone else will have to offer suggestions on that subject. For the rest of this document, i am assuming that lilo is in the MBR. Make whatever changes are necessary if you have it else where. Step 3. Now let's say that you have a single version of Linux installed and perhaps Win98 or something as well. Your fstab may look something like this: /dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/hdb5 / ext2 defaults 1 1 /dev/hdb9 /home ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hda2 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2 /dev/hdc /cdrom iso9660 ro,noauto,user 0 0 /dev/fd0 /floppy auto noauto,user 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 none /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0 /dev/hda1 /dos vfat noauto,user 0 0 ---------end---------- And your lilo.conf will have only two entries: <-------snip--------> # image = /boot/vmlinuz root = /dev/hdb5 label = suse # other = /dev/hda1 label = dos table = /dev/hda <------end-snip------> Notice that '/' is on the second EIDE hard drive outside of the bootable limit. Once again, this is not a problem because the bootable image "/boot/vmlinuz" is safely within the prescribed limit. Well enough. Now we want to add another version of Linux some where on /dev/hdb, the second EIDE hard drive. ** Have you noticed that i keep insisting on EIDE drives? That is because i have no experience with SCSI drives and i beleive there are some other considerations, when using SCSI drives or a combination of both. Again, i'll have to pass the buck on this one to someone else. Step 4 Partition your drive(s) and do what ever you need to to install the new Linux version. Only don't make a separate /boot partition. Just ignore it and it will be installed as a sub-directory beneath '/'. This will, in most cases, leave the new installation unbootable but that is fine. We will correct it later. Just get your stuff installed and make a boot disk while you're at it. Once that is done, use the new boot disk to boot into your new distro and see that things are okay. There is no point continuing if the install didn't work so check it first and know that the boot disk is okay too. Safe is safe. Now, you may find that lilo is corrupted. Again, not a problem. You DO have a boot disk for your original Linux install, right! I prefer to do the following configuration under my default system (SuSE 6.4), but you can do it either from the new installed system or the originall. For the sake of this explanation, i will assume we are doing it from the default system. Boot into it now. Step 5. First we want to edit the /etc/fstab file $ cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig #make backup of the original (always, always and forever and ever) $ pico /etc/fstab #use whatever editor you like add something like: # 2.0GB for other OS #this is a comment to remind you of what you did /dev/hdb1 /RedHat ext2 noauto,user 1 2 This says that i have installed RedHat on the first primary partition of my second EIDE drive. If you don't understand the format of an fstab entry, RTFM :). It's not too difficult. If you repartitioned your drive, you will have to make the appropriate changes to this file. Be careful! Now, create the directory /RedHat: $ mkdir /RedHat ... and mount it: $ mount -v /RedHat .... go to it: $ cd /RedHat ... enter the boot directory of you new installed system: # cd boot #note the lack of the leading '/'. If you were to include it, you would find yourself way back to your default system's boot partition. Not where you want to be! Do a pwd to be sure that you're in the right place: $ pwd #should read /RedHat/boot NOT /boot!!! Now copy your Redhat boot image to your bootable boot partition: $ cp -v vmlinuz /boot/RH #DON'T FORGET TO RENAME IT!! or you will trash your default systems boot image. If your at all uncertain, then copy it under a new name in the present directory before you send it to /boot: $ cp -v vmlinuz RH $ mv -v RH /boot #this time you can move since the original is still intact in the original directory. Notice that this time we are using /boot (not just boot). And remember, we are doing this from the default installation. Otherwise, things would be reversed (i.e. cp -v /SuSE/boot/vmlinuz /boot/suse). Now, we can configure lilo to recognize the new boot image. Step 6. if you are using SuSE as your default system you can configure lilo quite easily with Yast. I prefer to do it by hand. Yast is self explanitory so i will show you how i do it with an editor - pico 'cause i'm no unix geek.:)) $ cp -v /etc/lilo.conf /etc/lilo.conf.orig #remember your promise, "always, always and forever and ever"? $ pico /etc/lilo.conf Add a new section in the same format as the ones which are already present: # # a comment line image = /boot/RH # tell lilo where to find the boot image. This is how we named it in our example root = /dev/hdb1 # tell lilo where to find the '/' partition. Look at what you wrote down during the install. It's all there, right!! Don't forget, this is the 'root' partition not '/root'. Got that? label=rh # this is what you want to type in at the lilo prompt. Be creative. It's one of the few places where you say whatever the @*#^ you want. Save your changes and exit your editor. There is only one more step. Step 7. run lilo: $ lilo # it doesn't matter what your pwd is to run this The output should be something like: Added suse * Added dos Added rh This tells you that when you start up lilo the next time you will have these three options to boot. You can repeat this set up sa often as you like. Well, just about. Lilo can handle quite a few boot maps. One day i'll RTFM and find out for sure how many. I hope this has been of some help to you. If there is any thing that you didn't understand, read it again. If you still have questions, send them to . DISCLAIMER I will be happy to support any further questions. However, keep in mind that i am by no means a guru. As a matter of fact i know very little about about computers at all. If you are at all in doubt about what you are about to do, or about the validity of my suggestions; i strongly recommend that you contact a more advanced user before doing anything. In the end, it's your system that you will get trashed if something goes wrong. What i have learned has been through trial and error with the help of the SuSE mailing lists and the kindness of the Linux community in general. <wildbill> Bill Turner at linuxrenegades.com, Johannes Drechsel-Burkhard, and Lawrence at www.linuxdot.com in particular. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated. -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq

Thanks for your comments Ole; The one thing that worries me a little about putting all distros in the same /boot partitin is, how do you prevent it being over-written during a new installation? -- mark wilson ---------------------------- visit this site and help someone who needs you. Today. http://www.thehungersite.com ----------------------------- this message sent using S.u.S.E. Linux okh-linux@post.cybercity.dk wrote:

Mark wrote a lot about using a single /boot partition for several distros.

Thanks for an interesting read. It fit quite nicely along with what I thought ought to work.

One thing I also thought about, however, was putting the actual lilo.conf in /boot and having /etc/lilo.conf be a symbolic link to the actual file in all distros.

This would of course require mounting the partition as /boot in all distros, but that would also make it easier than having to reboot to your default distro, copying stuff and running lilo each time you make a new kernel. (I know you can compile a kernel for RH on SuSE, but you might want to compile a RH-patched one for RH and a SuSE-patched one for SuSE.)

Another consideration is initrd for allowing modules required for booting. If someone is using this, an additional file would have to be copied.

To avoid making too much of a mess, perhaps each distro should have its own subdirectory in /boot.

Well those where my 2 cents or whatever currency you accept.

Regards

Ole

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Thanks Tim, i'll keep this and Ole's messages for future reference. Tim Duggan wrote:

Hi mark,

Tuesday, September 26, 2000, 12:11:49 PM, you wrote:

...

Thanks for your comments Ole;

...

The one thing that worries me a little about putting all distros in the same /boot partitin is, how do you prevent it being over-written during a new installation?

I have a box with suse and debian which I set up much like Ole suggests. My /boot partition has subdirectories for each distro where the kernels live and each distro mounts it the same way (as /boot). During an install make sure you don't format the partition and the install should dump its kernel into /boot. So if I install RH, it will be the only kernel in /boot and I would move it (and whatever else necessary) to /boot/rh/. I do keep lilo.conf in a directory called /boot/lilo/ and the file /etc/lilo.conf is a link to it in each distro (as Ole mentioned). The only thing I've yet to automate is the kernel makefile to dump the appropriate kernel into the right directory. I have it done for SuSE, but haven't gotten around to doing it for Deb. Since I almost never do # make bzlilo I've been ok but I'm sure it'll bite me one day if I don't fix it (I know, it's so trivial I should do it and be done with it).:-) HTH

-- Good luck, Tim mailto:tduggan@dekaresearch.com

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"Brian" == Brian Galbraith writes:

Brian> I think you should be OK on this......SuSE sponser the Brian> XFree project and usually have enhancements before anyone Brian> else gets them. They didn't put it in last time, because at Brian> that stage they didn't think it stable enough. I have an Brian> old Mach 64 so 4.0 is not an option for me :-( SuSE have a Brian> support database to check on hardware. Ummm....is this true? I've looked over the XFree site and it still seems to support ATI Mach 64 cards - mine is about 4-5 years old. -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq

On Sun, 24 Sep 2000 11:05:41 +0100 Brian Galbraith put forth:

May be my fault then......I wasn't given a choice and 3.3.6 installation just happened. I assumed that if the card was not supported by v4.0 3.3.6 was installed.

Hi Brian - thanks for you welcome to the group. This is one of my questions, but stated in a different, better way. When I install my new 7 on hdb, will I be given a choice of x86. I don't know if you used the standard package install, but if so, then apparently 3.3.6 is the default. Must I use yast instead of yast2 to install 4, or is there a custom install option available in yast2, and can 4 and 3.3.6 coexist together? Will John get back with Sally? -- sorry, got carried away with the soap operas. <g> -- Best regards, Gary Today's thought: If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before. -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq