Multi-booting Linux & XP

Alien · 29-10-2007, 23:07

I'm wanting to set up a quad-boot system. ATM, I have both the 32 & 64 bit versions of XP, but I also want to try both 32 & 64 bit versions of Kubuntu. I know Grub ought to handle 1 lot of Linux along with both XPs, but I've heard it won't handle 2 lots of Linux for some reason.

It was suggested to me that I try EasyBCD, which would supposedly do all I want & more, but unfortunately it appears to require Vista, which I'm not in any hurry to try.

dragon · 29-10-2007, 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien

I'm wanting to set up a quad-boot system. ATM, I have both the 32 & 64 bit versions of XP, but I also want to try both 32 & 64 bit versions of Kubuntu. I know Grub ought to handle 1 lot of Linux along with both XPs, but I've heard it won't handle 2 lots of Linux for some reason.

It was suggested to me that I try EasyBCD, which would supposedly do all I want & more, but unfortunately it appears to require Vista, which I'm not in any hurry to try.

Well I installed kubuntu twice and it picked both of those up and XP... only problem is when you get a new kernel one of the ubuntu installs may not update the menu correctly...

You could always install grub to the individual partitions then use some other boot manager to call the partition which would then load grub which would then load linux

punky · 29-10-2007, 23:18

If Grub doesn't detect all the OSes properly, you can update the boot-up list manually. You can just copy the other Ubuntu boot option and change the partition to be the one with the second copy of linux.

Make sure you backup the currently boot list (menu.lst I think) before installing the second Linux OS in case it overwrites it with somethign odd.

Alien · 29-10-2007, 23:27

Ah, right. Cheers for the info guys.

I'm going to try 32bit Kubuntu first. I'll leave putting the 64bit 1 on until I've [hopefully] got the 32bit 1 all working & gotten a bit of a better grasp of Linux.

xpod · 29-10-2007, 23:32

Quote:

but I've heard it won't handle 2 lots of Linux for some reason

Not sure where you heard that one??

I`ve had 3 linux plus XP & Vista on one machine before.

It was just a passing phase i was going through

dragon · 29-10-2007, 23:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by xpod

Not sure where you heard that one??

I`ve had 3 linux plus XP & Vista on one machine before.

It was just a passing phase i was going through

I might have to put vista back on if I get one of those 8800GT's to use the DX10

Graham M · 29-10-2007, 23:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by xpod

Not sure where you heard that one??

I`ve had 3 linux plus XP & Vista on one machine before.

It was just a passing phase i was going through

I've had an XP, Mac OS X (x86 Beta

) and Linux machine before, that was kinda amusing

Alien · 29-10-2007, 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by xpod

Not sure where you heard that one??

I've had 3 linux plus XP & Vista on one machine before.

Well, in the interests of accuracy, what I heard was closer to what Punky said. The info I received wasn't that grub couldn't do it as such, it was more that it might not handle more than 1 instance of Linux automatically & that I might have to go delving into config files or whatever to sort it out. It's been quite a while since I did anything more indepth with Linux than the brief fiddle I had with the Ubuntu Live CD last week, & I remember finding things like the directory structure/filing system/whatever rather confusing. That's why I was hoping for something that could do what I wanted automatically without me having to "get my hands dirty", as it were, until I'm more familiar with Linux in general.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronald146m

I agree with you xpod, my PC is a distro-wh0re too.
But I don't know whether GRUB will be able to differentiate between the Ubuntu kernel and the Kubuntu kernel. Aren't they the same?
(I'm asking - I don't know the answer)

I don't plan [ATM] on running Ubuntu & Kubuntu, I'm planning on having 2 versions [32 & 64bit] of Kubuntu. As for the difference between Ubuntu & Kubuntu, I probably know the least about Linux out of everyone in this thread, so it's very possible that I'm wrong with this, but from what I've read/heard the main [only?] difference between Ubuntu & Kubuntu is that Ubuntu uses Gnome & Kubuntu uses KDE.

ronald146m · 29-10-2007, 23:56

Hi alien
I deleted my post when I realized that I hadn't read the question properly.

You're probably OK to run both those 32 and 64 bit versions because they will have different kernels and so will have different entries on GRUB.(imho).

dragon · 30-10-2007, 00:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien

Well, in the interests of accuracy, what I heard was closer to what Punky said. The info I received wasn't that grub couldn't do it as such, it was more that it might not handle more than 1 instance of Linux automatically & that I might have to go delving into config files or whatever to sort it out. It's been quite a while since I did anything more indepth with Linux than the brief fiddle I had with the Ubuntu Live CD last week, & I remember finding things like the directory structure/filing system/whatever rather confusing. That's why I was hoping for something that could do what I wanted automatically without me having to "get my hands dirty", as it were, until I'm more familiar with Linux in general.

I don't plan [ATM] on running Ubuntu & Kubuntu, I'm planning on having 2 versions [32 & 64bit] of Kubuntu. As for the difference between Ubuntu & Kubuntu, I probably know the least about Linux out of everyone in this thread, so it's very possible that I'm wrong with this, but from what I've read/heard the main [only?] difference between Ubuntu & Kubuntu is that Ubuntu uses Gnome & Kubuntu uses KDE.

It will still get listed differently

the kernel can be prefixed with a build tag.

I had Debian one with dragondtop appended to the end once the kernel name is et when its compiled

xpod · 30-10-2007, 01:40

Quote:

I've had an XP, Mac OS X (x86 Beta ) and Linux machine before, that was kinda amusing
Yesterday 22:39

That was before i realised what a virtual machine was of course

Quote:

Well, in the interests of accuracy, what I heard was closer to what Punky said. The info I received wasn't that grub couldn't do it as such, it was more that it might not handle more than 1 instance of Linux automatically & that I might have to go delving into config files or whatever to sort it out. It's been quite a while since I did anything more indepth with Linux than the brief fiddle I had with the Ubuntu Live CD last week, & I remember finding things like the directory structure/filing system/whatever rather confusing. That's why I was hoping for something that could do what I wanted automatically without me having to "get my hands dirty", as it were, until I'm more familiar with Linux in general.

I have had one or two distro`s in the past that required a little bit of work on the menu.lst but Ubuntu & Co`s Grub should pick em up all day long hopefully.Same one or not.

Alien · 03-11-2007, 18:35

I've had a bunch of probs trying to get Kubuntu to install, so much that I'm now trying Ubuntu. The problem I've got at the moment is different ways of referring to HDDs. In the partitioning bit of the installer, & in GParted, it refers to drives as hda, sda, & sdb, but in the advanced options to choose which drive to put the bootloader on, it has hd0 as the default option, so would sdb be hd2?

On a different note - why is it that GParted & the installer's partitioning section take an eternity to get the partition info from the drives, when it takes less than 10 seconds in XP, either in XP's own applet or Partition Manager?

Cobbydaler · 03-11-2007, 18:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien

I've had a bunch of probs trying to get Kubuntu to install, so much that I'm now trying Ubuntu. The problem I've got at the moment is different ways of referring to HDDs. In the partitioning bit of the installer, & in GParted, it refers to drives as hda, sda, & sdb, but in the advanced options to choose which drive to put the bootloader on, it has hd0 as the default option, so would sdb be hd2?

On a different note - why is it that GParted & the installer's partitioning section take an eternity to get the partition info from the drives, when it takes less than 10 seconds in XP, either in XP's own applet or Partition Manager?

If you do (as root) cat /boot/grub/device.map it will tell you exactly what is what.

e.g. mine is:

Code:

cat /boot/grub/device.map
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdb
(hd2) /dev/hdd

It is likely that sdb is hd2

Alien · 03-11-2007, 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cobbydaler

If you do (as root) cat /boot/grub/device.map it will tell you exactly what is what.

e.g. mine is:

Code:

cat /boot/grub/device.map
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdb
(hd2) /dev/hdd

It is likely that sdb is hd2

Ugh, terminal window!

how do I do something as root again? Bearing in mind I haven't installed yet, & am still running from a Live CD. The only thing I could remember, from previous dalliances with Linux was the SU command, for which it wants a password, but it hasn't asked me to set 1 at any point!

I vaguely remembered the sudo command, & thought that might be worth a try, but with or without it, it just says

Quote:

cat: /boot/grub/device.map: No such file or directory

Cobbydaler · 03-11-2007, 19:35

If you're on a liveCD setup then:

Code:

su -c "cat /union/boot/grub/device.map"

including quotes, that will prompt you for whatever the root password for the liveCD is set as...