[Novalug] multiboot installs
James Ewing Cottrell 3rd
JECottrell3 at Comcast.NET
Thu Jun 11 09:37:07 EDT 2009
This is the way I *live*, and having done it frequently, I have codified
it in a way that is easy and simple to use.
Yes, swap can be shared. So can /home, subject to the subdir caveat.
Rather then trying to copy files from a subdirectory, it's usually
easier to have the home directory BE a different directory on each
machine. Then you can share files by symlinking them to the REAL version
one level above. Here is an abbreviated example.
/home/rbj all the files I own
/home/rbj/.bashrc aliases, etc
/home/rbj/bin my executables
/home/rbj/xyz stuff for the xyz project (whatever that may be)
/home/rbj/cos5 $HOME on CentOS 5.x
/home/rbj/cos5/.bashrc symlink to ../.bashrc
/home/rbj/cos5/bin symlink to ../bin
/home/rbj/cos5/xyz symlink to ../xyz
/home/rbj/fc10 $HOME on Fedora 10
/home/rbj/fc10/.bashrc symlink to ../.bashrc
/home/rbj/fc10/bin symlink to ../bin
/home/rbj/fc10/xyz symlink to ../xyz
/home/rbj/cos5/.bashrc symlink to ../.bashrc
/home/rbj/cos5/bin symlink to ../bin
/home/rbj/cos5/xyz symlink to ../xyz
/home/rbj/ubu8 $HOME on Ubuntu 8.{04,10}
/home/rbj/suse102 $HOME on SuSE 10.2
Anything that is of general interest gets promoted to .. and symlinked;
otherwise I just leave it in the specific subdir.
The above is an abbreviated version. There are more files shared, and
more distro subdirs. Actually, it's more complicated; all the stuff I
want to share is in a container directory file called ._ which is linked
to ../._, and all the files in ._ are linked to the version in ._. Hey,
that looks like Morse code. I have a setup script in ._ that does this.
To propagate my stuff, I have a flash drive with a CVS (now svn) repo on
it, and check it out wherever I go. As a special bonus, I link root's ._
to /home/rbj/._ to get the same environment.
I chose ._ because it doesn't match .??*, which is how you glob dotfiles.
The reason it's difficult to copy files is that they are run out of
[gkx]dm, plus the fact that it's hard to make a definitive list.
Besides, if you ran a VM of some sort, you couldn't log into both.
I had even considered trying to CD into the proper subdir based on what
was in /etc/issue and then resetting $HOME, but I decided that varying
my /etc/password line was easier. Besides, i have a mkrbj script that I
run as root, giving it the subdir name.
As for partitioning, I use explicit cylinder numbers: 1000 cylinders is
roughly 8G, and I make most of them the same size. I also skip the first
cylinder on a disk and cylinders in front of logical partitions. The
avoids the MBR eating the first sector in the first cylinder and making
it an odd size.
I put a small Rescue Linux which owns the MBR and build a grub.conf with
generic chainloader stanzas into all the other partitions. Then I
install the boot code for each distro into its own partition. Every boot
(except the rescue system) thus goes thru grub twice, but who cares?
Greg, if you give me some space on TUX I can write this up as my own
version of HOWTOs.
JIM
greg pryzby wrote:
> OPINION ONLY below. Take it for what it is worth. I am NOT responsible
> for lost data, a machine imploding, etc. User beware.
>
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Sean McGowan
> <scepticanagramwonk at verizon.net <mailto:scepticanagramwonk at verizon.net>>
> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the discussion on Ubuntu vs Fedora. I have a copy of Ubuntu
> 9.04, Fedora 11, and OpenSuse 11.1. I may choose a couple more flavors.
> I am going to backup my current /home and then start from scratch. I
> have a 360G HD and 3G RAM. I am planning on running amd64 versions when
> available. I have a few questions...
>
> 1) Partitioning... From everything I am reading, each distro will only
> require its own / and a /swap. The convention would be 6G swap for each
> distro? Why can't they share swap space?
>
>
> They could share swap. Where did you read they couldn't? Swap is swap.
>
>
> 2) Partitioning continued... Any recommendations on additional
> partitions? I would like to share /home if possible. Keeping my music
> (because of its enormity) in a shared location would be beneficial.
>
>
> The only issue w/ /home shared would be configuration files for any apps
> if there are different version. For instance if there are different
> versions of a window manager, the conf files could be different enough
> to cause issues.
>
> You COULD have a login that checked the release and copied the
> appropriate dot files into place. There could be /home/$user/U-9.04,
> /home/$user/F-11, etc. On login, there is a script that checks for
> /etc/$distr0-release and copies the dot file from
> /home/$user/$distro-$ver to /home/$user. Or that might be overkill
>
>
> 3) Providing I have shared partitions, is it important that they all
> use the same type filesystem? I know Fedora defaults to ext4, whereas I
> believe Jaunty is ext3?
>
>
> you could have /home a ext3 and /music as ext4 assuming ext3 and ext4
> were supported for all the distros.
>
>
> 4) If I install a x86 version of a distro on my box, as well as a amd64
> version, and they share a partition, other than my compiled code, will
> there be any difficulties?
>
>
> The could share /home and other non library/binary directories assuming
> the caveats under #2
>
>
>
> If anyone knows of a good resource (preferably online) for this, I would
> very much appreciate it. Sometimes it is difficult to weed out the good
> advice from the people who I wouldn't let use an electrical outlet.
>
>
> Only way to be sure is to test yourself and write it up to share.
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> --
> -Sean McGowan
>
> “Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
> he'll be warm for the rest of his life.”
>
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>
>
> --
> greg pryzby
>
>
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