🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <371DADCE.8316C21F@jasonpnospam.com>,
	jason@jasonpNOSPAM.com writes:
[snip]
> So I take it that the procedure to have two linux distributions running
> as different OSs is to just create two linux native partitions and then
> with LILO choose the appropriate partition as root, right?
> 
> How about if I've already setup a RedHat version installed with a root,
> swap, "/usr", "/usr/local" partitions.
> If I created a new partition for Slackware and made it the root
> partition with LILO wouldn't it still try to use the /usr and /home
> directories from the RH distrib?
> Or for a dual linux OS setup does it have to have a single partition for
> each one? I don't see how I can have two "/usr" partitions one for each
> partition.
>
> How about the swap partition, can that be shared?


As has been recommended, yes, you probably want to separate the /usr,
etc. partitions for each distribution.  Suppose you install RH first,
and you have this in your /etc/fstab (I've abbreviated the file,
for clarity):

/dev/hdb9	swap	swap
/dev/hdb1	/	ext2
/dev/hdb3	/usr	ext2
/dev/hdb5	/home	ext2
/dev/hdb6	/usr/local	ext2

Of course yours will look different.  Now suppose you install Slackware
with root on /dev/hdb2.  You'd probably want the Slack /etc/fstab to
look like so:

/dev/hdb9	swap	swap
/dev/hdb2	/	ext2
/dev/hdb7	/usr	ext2
/dev/hdb8	/usr/local	ext2
/dev/hdb5	/home	ext2

Some items of note:

--The /, /usr, and /usr/local partitions are located on separate
physical partitions (that's what the /dev's are) on the hard disk.
This is what people are recommending to avoid library/binary
conflicts.
--The /home partition is on the same physical partition /dev/hdb5
in both distributions.  As long as you don't put binaries from
one distribution in /home, and then run it in another, you should
be okay.  (Even doing that shouldn't cause major problems, but
better safe than sorry, eh?)
--The swap partition is on /dev/hdb9 in both distributions.
--You have to plan your partition table very carefully for this
configuration; in particular, make sure that your root partitions
are below the 1024 cylinder limit, or LILO will complain.

The two major problems you'll have are booting and confusion.  The
booting will be odd because you'll have to make sure your LILO
configurations are the same in both distributions.  Else, if you
run LILO in one, then make different changes and run LILO in the
other, you might not realize that your LILO install is now
inconsistent with one of your distributions.  Easy to fix, but
can get irritating.

The other issue is that RH and Slackware have very different
configuration files and setup.  It will probably get confusing
going back and forth to, say, configure a boot script in
RH, then try to do the same in Slackware.  Some files will be
in different places, others will be completely different, etc.

Bottom line: If your long-term plans call for having only one
distribution installed at a time, then what you're trying to
do isn't a problem.  Make this decision quickly, though, to
save yourself some headaches.


-- Keith
kkeller@dspeed.net