Newsgroups:  comp.os.linux.misc
Date:        Sun, 26 Oct 2003 01:55:06 GMT

> > Anyone have pointers (links) to info on installing a second distro and
> > booting between the two?  Right now I have rh9, about 60G free space and
> > wanting to take a look at gentoo.
>
> simple. I've had 4 booting off the same hard drive.
> The way I did it was, install the first, let it configure lilo so it's
> bootable.
>
> Then install the second, third and fourth, selecting the same /home and swap
> partitions. (But tell them NOT to write lilo to the MBR)
>
> Then, boot into the first, mount the other 3, copy their kernels to the
> bootable linux's /boot directory, edit lilo and add those 3 kernels with
> image=vmlinuz-mandrake
>    label=mandrake
>    root=/dev/hda<whatever>
>
> image=vmlinuz-suse
>    label=suse
>    root=/dev/hda<whateverelse>
>
> etc
> run lilo, and you're away.
> the system map files will probably need copying too, but they should have
> names based on their kernel, like System.map-2.4.20-1, so they won't clash
> between distros.

You really don't need the System.map files, unless you're doing kernel debugging, (although some kernel messages to syslogd to actually use some of the symbols picked up from the map files if available).

Likewise, you don't need to copy the kernel images from the other partitions if you mount those other partitions somewhere and create symlinks in /boot pointing to them—during the time you are writing lilo to the MBR (at that time, lilo will write the disk block addresses, so that the symlinks are not needed later).

Or you can use grub, and not bother with the above, since grub can find the kernel images via its understanding of filesystems in which the kernel images are located. In grub, you specify which partition have the other kernels via the 'root' parameter, and the pathname to them via the 'kernel' parameter.

Dave Brown Austin, TX