[Ma-linux] Dual booting OpenSuse and Fedora

[DonJr]

On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 10:30 -0500, Jay Hart wrote:
> Story:  I want to install and test other distros to see if I like something
> better then OpenSuse.

<SNIP>

> Also as a side note I wasn't able to install Virtualbox, Yast ran through the
> install once, but I don't see any of the files, and I can't get Yast to repeat
> the install process, nor can I "uninstall" Virtualbox.

I've never had this type of problem with Ubuntu and apt.
I've switched a number of times from "vmplayer" (that I've used for a
long time on older versions) to Virtual Box and back again on my totally
NEW setup, until I decided that a combo of Virtual Box(for XP) and
Qemu(for Linux/BSD based) was the way to go for the next generation.

  {I had to give up SOUND in order to use Vmware's vmplayer with Ubuntu
7.10(gusty).}

> Back to the story:
> I have two SATA controllers on the motherboard, which during booting, shows up
> prior to the BIOS being loaded for the new SATA Siig controller.  When I boot
> into Opensuse (which was previously installed), the new drive shows up as sda,
> and the two other SATA drives show up as sdb and sdc. Not sure why they show
> up in this order, but so far it hasn't stopped opensuse from being bootable.
> It seems to me that the new drive should shos up as sdc.

Check out the file /etc/blkid.tab and the blkid utility.
The effect is also in part a feature/side-effect of UDEV trying give
devices constant names/ids.

> Installation of Fedora:
> So I started off by installing Fedora 8 Live Media, the Gnome CD version. 
> This got put on the first slice of the new disk, and since I already had Grub
> loaded, I choose not to install the bootloader.

Should of chosen to install grub into the Partition Boot Record (PBR) of
the root partition for the distribution and then you could boot that
partition from your main Grub with code something like the following:

   title           Chainload grub in sd?11 partition boot sector
   root            (hd3,10)  # adjust to point to your partition
   savedefault               # can be handy if it's a REBOOTING type OS
   chainloader     +1        # see 'info grub' for details.

And then whatever could update it's LOCALize configuration in whatever
way it need/wanted to.

> When I was finished with the install, I was worried about not being able to
> boot to Fedora since grub didn't know about it. I made sure that I had a
> kernel file in /boot, but I noticed that there was no initrd file. So I copied
> one from the isolinux directory, and made the correct sym links to these
> files.

Those are normally specialized initrd used to load/start the installer,
but may work in a pinch as a "Rescue type System loader".

> Next came the hard part of trying to locate which partition the fedora distro
> was loaded on, based on what was being reported to Grub located on my opensuse
> boot partition.

Look at the file (hd?,??)/boot/grub/device.map for a hint.

> I think I have overcome all issues, except that once again I don't have a
> initrd file that grub will boot, most likely since I copied the wrong one
> over.

That's because when you "install" a kernel with the current crop of
kernel installers part of the process is to create the initrd on the fly
at the time of install time using "mkinitrd" and friends.

> So, some questions:
> 
> 1. Would it be easier to copy all kernel and initrd files to /boot on my
> opensuse partition, and then specify under the grub menu which partition will
> be the root partition for the distro I'm loading.

EASY? Maybe if there is nothing important on the drive, but a mess to
clean up when the installer overwrites/removes files important to other
OSes.

> 2. Can I boot off of any 20GB partition, regardless of location on the drive.
> Question #1 is a workaround for this question.

With Grub and it's "chainload" function/feature pretty much so yes.
There are some limitations, but Grub should warn you ahead of time.

> 3. Can someone point me to the default kernel and initrd files for the base CD
> installation, so I can try and see if they work.

Depends on the distribution.
  Hint look on the CD for the file "isolinux.cfg" or "SYSLINUX.CFG" or
"menu.lst" as these are the common names of the configuration files used
by the current commonly used cd boot loaders.
  They are simple text files.

> Wow, I think this is my longest ever email.
> 
> Thanks in advance for reading my ramblings.
> 
> Jay

-- 
 DonJr