Linux Dual Booting Question

[Guest]

Hi everyone! This is a great community! I've taken some time to look around the forums and search a bit, and I've already learned a lot. I have 2 questions at the very end of this post.

I've reformatted and partitioned an old hard drive and am already running linux on one of the 1st partitions. I'd like to install kubuntu on the next partition so that I can evaluate the 2 distros in a dual boot mode. I am planning to install one of them to dual boot with windows xp when my newer computer gets back from the shop. I've wanted to do this for a long time, but had hesitated lest I mess something up. It's been fun to experiment on a machine that was previously unusable.

Anyway, I have a 40 gb hard drive on this older machine, and based on what I've read in the forums, I've used gparted to set up the following partitions:

dev/hda1 primary partition, ext 3 format, 500 mb (for booting)

dev/hda2 primary partition, 10.94 gb for other linux distro (I also allowed it to write to the master boot record when I installed it)

dev/hda3, extended partition (it automatically added 3 mb of unallocated space in front of it)

dev/hda4, logical partition 12.30 GB

dev/hda5, linux-swap 1 GB

room to grow...

My questions:

1. Am I on the right track here with how this is formatted and/or should i put unallocated space in between the partitions?

2. When I install kubuntu, will it automatically detect the other linux distro and set up the grub boot menu correctly, or do I need to do something special to the partition I set aside for booting?

Thanks!

[Qqmike]

Re: Linux Dual Booting Question

This is easy to do – you are on the right track and have thought it out rather well so far.

You don't really need the separate /boot partition. But if you use one, you only need a separate “GRUB partition” -- not a true, full /boot partition. The former only contains GRUB files and main boot menu (/boot/grub/menu.lst); the latter actually contains kernels files.

You don't need any extra unallocated space; just be somewhat generous with each partition.

When you install Kubuntu, you can have it install GRUB to the MBR, thus overwriting the GRUB that is there and auto-detecting your other Linux in hda2. However – see my thing on separate GRUB partition (below), because if that is what you use, then when installing Kubuntu, you would have the installer only install GRUB to the root (=boot) sector of the Kubuntu partition (so if Kubuntu goes into hda6, then you tell the installer to put GRUB in hda6); then, you modify the menu.lst in the GRUB partition hda1 to include the new Kubuntu, and do so using configfile.

The other thing to consider for Kubuntu is a separate partition for your personal /home/your_username, where your personal data is kept. Very handy. That way, when you re-install Kubuntu to hda6, it will not overwrite your personal /home data files. Make /home, for example, hda7.

It's always easiest to install XP first, then your Linux distros, but I see people doing it all ways. (Vista might be different—maybe even pickier about where it goes.)

Using the regular live Kubuntu Desktop CD installer:
Select the Manual method of partitioning (Step 4?).
In Step 6, click Advanced button at lower right – that's where you put GUB; e.g., in our example here, you would type (hd0,6). GRUB counts from zero, so hd0 = first hard drive = hda; partition 6 = the 7th partition. (so (hd0,6) = hda7)

It's all here:

How To GRUB Methods - Toolkit
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0
--- HOW To: Change the Default Operating System (Also: Changing the timeout, boot menu, and other tips) Reply #1
--- How to make a separate “GRUB partition.” (Dedicated to the GRUB files and make your PC boot from those GRUB files.) Reply #10