Partition Advice - Multi-boots

I have been messing with a variety of linuxes lately and learned more than I intended about the guts of the install process due to my choice of a nVidia motherboard. So, finally, I am fairly confident that can get my hardware running after a HD install.

I have a plan now to run a dual boot system with a HD install of Knoppix (or possibly Morphix) as my work desktop and Knoppmyth (Knoppix flavor for the MythTV suite of multimedia and PVR apps). So, basically, I would like to set up Lilo or Grub to boot these. I am still working out partitioning a drive for this purpose. I have an 80G drive. What I would like to do is something like this:

hda1 4G Knoppix (with some other apps I need to work like emacs)
hda2 1G Swap
hda3 4G Knoppmyth
hda4 71G /home (for /home/me and /home/myth and /home/others)

I don't remember how much room Knoppmyth wants for / but it might be more and the standard install actually sets up a bunch of partitions that made sense the first time I tried it on a fresh drive, but I don't remember the specifics. So:

Can I use the swap for both? Does that cause any problems?

Can I have two different distributions point to hda4 without any problems? I know each distribution will have its own fstab to set all the mounts, but I need to review that concept again.

So many multi-boot how-to's get bogged down in the MS issues. I am just interested in the linux side.

I am curious about other installs like this. There are a bunch of specialized distributions out there and I know many people keep a few around just for variety. What have other people done?

Thanks for any advice.

nrj

Hi "nrj", your partitioning scheme looks just fine to me.

> Can I use the swap for both? Does that cause any problems?
Yes & no respectively.

> Can I have two different distributions point to hda4 without any problems?
Yes

Plus you might foresee a mount point for the other distro's root FS, eg mount hda3 onto /KnopMyth when booting Knoppix, and vice versa.

Personally, I' d probably have a small hda1 for booting (plus maybe installing grub if you later want to experiment with it)- say 32Mb. All the rest can actually live within an extended partition. Also you might keep some space available and start with a smaller /home. And then 1Gb swap is a lot . You might allocate less, and if you ever temporarily need more (like when rematering), swapspace call be added in the form of regular files.

But your initial layout would work just as well ;-)

Thanks for the confirmation, Baldyeti.

My understanding of partitions is still at the novice level. What advantage would I have mounting hda3 onto /KnopMyth and /hda1 onto /Knopp. Would this make it easier to access files on one system (Knoppix, say) when using the other system (KnopMyth)?

If I were to use a 32Mb hda1, how would I set that up? Just make the partition, install lilo there and make extended partitions for the rest of my setup? Is there any +/- to using a primary vs an extended partition for anything that I have proposed?

I would guess to answer that, you would need to know what I intend to do.

In my /home directory, I would like to back up my photos and music collection (~15G, but growing...). I have them on a powerbook right now. I like the MythTv interface for music and pics, but macs have the import/export of photos and music perfect. I would like to be able to place my rarely used media on the Linux box (and eventually backups of everything). I was hoping to have a shared file (samba?) in the /home directory to access this data when I need to from other computers.
Also, once I start recording some tv, it would be nice to be able to access those files over a share. I have some ideas about how to do this, but do you have any suggestions for making this work efficiently?

Realizing, of course, that it is probably an inefficient idea...

To put it simply, we are running a small lan right now with 3 (2 macs and a XP) notebooks on wireless and the linux machine plugged in. Eventually, I would like to make the linux box the server and have the notebooks put any backups on it.

Thanks, nrj

PS Damn, now I wish I had imagined a name as funny as baldyeti....

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What advantage would I have mounting hda3 onto /KnopMyth and hda1 onto /Knopp. Would this make it easier to access files on one system (Knoppix, say) when using the other system (KnopMyth)?

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Exactly.

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If I were to use a 32Mb hda1, how would I set that up? Just make the partition, install lilo there and make extended partitions for the rest of my setup?

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You'd use it as your /boot, and specify it as boot in lilo.conf as well.

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Is there any +/- to using a primary vs an extended partition for anything that I have proposed?

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You can only have 4 primary partitions at most, and some OS's can only install and boot from a PP. I was suggesting not using them all so you can possibly install another OS later on - provided not all you HD space has been allocated. If you don't think you'll need that, your original scheme was just fine, and will probably work better with the knoppix installer: no need to let it know about non-standard partitioning; just let it install to hda1 and move /home afterwards.

Sorry to dredge this topic up again, but I am still a bit stuck on lilo. I have read and read and read on lilo multiboots for Win/Linux, but I don't need that because there is no windows on my machine. Here is what I have so far:

hda1 Knoppix (bootable)
hda2 Swap
hda3 KnoppMyth
hda5 /cache #For MythTV
hda6 /home

I think it takes some work after installing to be able to choose either Knoppix or MythTV. These steps are probably obvious, but I haven't seen them layed out for a newbie. Here is what I think needs to be done.

After the Knoppix install, lilo is on my mbr. Then I do a manual install of KnoppMyth. Now to make lilo give me the option of booting into either Knoppix or Myth, I know lilo needs to look something like this (i know i should have specifics, but I am on my work computer):

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map

image=/boot/`knoppix_image'
label=Knoppix
root=/dev/hda1

image=/boot/`myth_image'
label=MythTV
root=/dev/hda3

So, the problem I have been having is getting the MythTV image path to be correct. I can't specify it as /hda3/boot/... or /dev/hda3/boot.... or /mnt/hda3/boot... or anything that would point to where the MythTV image is placed in the install. Is the solution just to copy the image from hda3/boot/ to hda1/boot/ and then the root declaration takes care of boot up the correct system? I am still getting my head around this concept and have had trouble finding examples of lilo.confs that do what I am trying to do (or at least explaining it in enough detail to get me going, which I am guessing is because it is pretty obvious to most).

Thanks for any advice, nrj

/mnt/hda3/boot/somekernel should work. Just make sure /mnt/hda3 is mounted when running lilo. Run lilo with the '-v' verbose option and pay attention to possible error message. If it still does not work, post your existing lilo.conf.

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Originally Posted by nrj

Sorry to dredge this topic up again, but I am still a bit stuck on lilo. I have read and read and read on lilo multiboots for Win/Linux, but I don't need that because there is no windows on my machine. Here is what I have so far:

hda1 Knoppix (bootable)
hda2 Swap
hda3 KnoppMyth
hda5 /cache #For MythTV
hda6 /home

I think it takes some work after installing to be able to choose either Knoppix or MythTV. These steps are probably obvious, but I haven't seen them layed out for a newbie. Here is what I think needs to be done.

After the Knoppix install, lilo is on my mbr. Then I do a manual install of KnoppMyth. Now to make lilo give me the option of booting into either Knoppix or Myth, I know lilo needs to look something like this (i know i should have specifics, but I am on my work computer):

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map

image=/boot/`knoppix_image'
label=Knoppix
root=/dev/hda1

image=/boot/`myth_image'
label=MythTV
root=/dev/hda3

So, the problem I have been having is getting the MythTV image path to be correct. I can't specify it as /hda3/boot/... or /dev/hda3/boot.... or /mnt/hda3/boot... or anything that would point to where the MythTV image is placed in the install. Is the solution just to copy the image from hda3/boot/ to hda1/boot/ and then the root declaration takes care of boot up the correct system? I am still getting my head around this concept and have had trouble finding examples of lilo.confs that do what I am trying to do (or at least explaining it in enough detail to get me going, which I am guessing is because it is pretty obvious to most).

Thanks for any advice, nrj

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Do it the easy way set the Mythtv in the knoppix lilo.conf to other=/dev/hda3 run lilo and on your mythtv install lilo with it configured in it's lilo.conf as the boot=/dev/hda3 and root=/dev/hda3 then run /sbin/lilo -v -b /dev/hda3 which will install lilo into your root partition of the Mythtv and then when you boot from lilo in the mbr it will take you to the lilo in the root of the mythtv install and you can boot it. If you comment out the prompt and set the delay to something small in the lilo of the mythtv the boot to it's partition can seem to be having come from the mbr lilo with very little delay.

Thanks for the help baldyeti and Stephen,

I am taking a fresh crack at this tonight and will make sure I have the full path and that everything is mounted.

Stephen, I think I understand what you suggest and it seems easy, but just to confirm where each of the actions happen, does this sound right?

I install Knoppmyth on hda3 and tell it to install lilo on the root of hda3. The lilo.conf will look like

boot= /dev/hda3

image= /boot/`myth image'
label= knoppmyth
root= /dev/hda3

run lilo -v -b /dev/hda3

my lilo.conf on hda1 (and thus referring to the lilo on mbr) will look like this:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map

image=/boot/`knoppix_image'
label=Knoppix
root=/dev/hda1

other=/dev/hda3
label=MythTV

run lilo after this edit. right? then it will give me the options

Knopp ----------> Loads Knoppix
MythTV ----------> This will just skip to /dev/hda3, which loads lilo on
boot of KnoppMyth
(as you said, with low delay, it will default to the knoppmyth)

is it true that I don't need to specify the complete path (/dev/hda3/boot/`myth image') since the lilo will be running from the hda3 already?

Yes you have the idea correct you just have to set the lilo of the mythtv to noprompt and have a small delay.

Code:

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# message=/boot/bootmess.txt
#      prompt
#      single-key
      delay=10
#      timeout=100

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