Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 20:16:28 +0000 (UTC) From: Beartooth Beartooth@swva.net Subject: [CentOS] VDQ Grub
Very Dumb Question : I have tried about four times now, using an old pentium2 with two hard drives (20 GB and 30 GB) to install both CentOS 4.4 and Fedora Core 6 in such a way as to enable dual-boot between them.
I've tried it by installing 4.4 first, and then FC6. I've tried it by installing FC6 first, and then 4.4. I've tried it with and without giving the installer permission to use both drives.
I always end up with ability to boot only to one OS, usually the one installed last. Between tries I wipe both drives with DBAN.
Surely there must be something I'm doing wrong, obvious to many but not to me. Clue, please?
The way it works for me is:
1) Install distro 1 on the first drive, and let it put its GRUB into the MBR of the drive. Mostly that is what installers want to do by default
2) Install distro 2 on the second drive but make it put its GRUB in the root partition of the second drive. Looking at the RHEL installation guide, this will be done via the "Configure advanced boot loader" option in the Bootloader Configuration phase
3) Once the installation of distro 2 is complete, boot into distro 1 and modify /boot/grub/menu.lst to include:
title Distro 2 rootnoverify (hd1,0) chainloader +1
If there is any chance that you will want distro 2 to be the default at some stage, put this before distro 1, which will look like:
title Fedora Core (2.6.14-1.1656_FC4) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet initrd /initrd-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4.img
and modify the
default= 0
to 1
Then if you later want distro 2 to be default you can change it back to 0 again. Doing it this way round avoids confusion if distro 1 gets a kernel upgrade and a new title line is added.
I can recommend the following for GRUB wisdom:
* http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/blog/saikee * A grub menu booting 100+ systems of Dos, Windows, Linux, BSD and Solaris: http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143973 * Just booting tips: http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144294 * Saikee's grub booting tips: http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?p=837905#post837905
Andy Goss
On Mon, 2007-01-22 at 11:32 +1100, Andy wrote:
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 20:16:28 +0000 (UTC) From: Beartooth Beartooth@swva.net Subject: [CentOS] VDQ Grub
Very Dumb Question : I have tried about four times now, using an old pentium2 with two hard drives (20 GB and 30 GB) to install both CentOS 4.4 and Fedora Core 6 in such a way as to enable dual-boot between them.
I've tried it by installing 4.4 first, and then FC6. I've tried it by installing FC6 first, and then 4.4. I've tried it with and without giving the installer permission to use both drives.
I always end up with ability to boot only to one OS, usually the one installed last. Between tries I wipe both drives with DBAN.
Surely there must be something I'm doing wrong, obvious to many but not to me. Clue, please?
The way it works for me is:
- Install distro 1 on the first drive, and let it put its GRUB into the MBR
of the drive. Mostly that is what installers want to do by default
- Install distro 2 on the second drive but make it put its GRUB in the root
partition of the second drive. Looking at the RHEL installation guide, this will be done via the "Configure advanced boot loader" option in the Bootloader Configuration phase
- Once the installation of distro 2 is complete, boot into distro 1 and
modify /boot/grub/menu.lst to include:
title Distro 2 rootnoverify (hd1,0) chainloader +1
If there is any chance that you will want distro 2 to be the default at some stage, put this before distro 1, which will look like:
title Fedora Core (2.6.14-1.1656_FC4) root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet initrd /initrd-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4.img
and modify the
default= 0
to 1
Then if you later want distro 2 to be default you can change it back to 0 again. Doing it this way round avoids confusion if distro 1 gets a kernel upgrade and a new title line is added.
I can recommend the following for GRUB wisdom:
- http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/blog/saikee
- A grub menu booting 100+ systems of Dos, Windows, Linux, BSD and Solaris:
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143973
- Just booting tips: http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144294
- Saikee's grub booting tips:
http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?p=837905#post837905
I want to mention that this is exactly what I do (add all other booting as rootnoverify.
This a very flexable way to do things ... for example, if you have a drive that contains all the parts to boot the 2nd OS, you can move it to a new machine and point grub to boot it there very easily.
You can also easily add a 3rd or 4th or 5th OS, etc.
More recently, I have been setting up VMs via VMware instead of setting up dual boots, but this method is the one I personally use for dual booting.
Andy wrote:
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 20:16:28 +0000 (UTC) From: Beartooth Beartooth@swva.net Subject: [CentOS] VDQ Grub
Very Dumb Question : I have tried about four times now, using an old pentium2 with two hard drives (20 GB and 30 GB) to install both CentOS 4.4 and Fedora Core 6 in such a way as to enable dual-boot between them.
I've tried it by installing 4.4 first, and then FC6. I've tried it by installing FC6 first, and then 4.4. I've tried it with and without giving the installer permission to use both drives.
I always end up with ability to boot only to one OS, usually the one installed last. Between tries I wipe both drives with DBAN.
Surely there must be something I'm doing wrong, obvious to many but not to me. Clue, please?
The way it works for me is:
- Install distro 1 on the first drive, and let it put its GRUB into the MBR
of the drive. Mostly that is what installers want to do by default
- Install distro 2 on the second drive but make it put its GRUB in the root
partition of the second drive. Looking at the RHEL installation guide, this will be done via the "Configure advanced boot loader" option in the Bootloader Configuration phase
The MBR of the second drive is fine.
I've had as many as four distros on _one_ drive, each with its own grub configuration; the first, in addition to booting something directly. chains to the others.
Note: SUSE distroes put all Linux systems into one grub configuration. I think this is a Bad Idea(tm) because when I install a new kernel, only one system has even the vaguest chance of updating its menu properly.
-
Andy -
John Summerfield -
Johnny Hughes