Multiple distribution booting from one computer

[Jim Cornette]

George Hare wrote:
>> On Sunday 29 October 2006 21:57, George Hare wrote:
>> > I spoke much too hastily. He whom the gods would destroy, they first 
>> make
>> > proud. I can still access each but it requires booting from a cd if 
>> I want
>> > to change. I think that there might be some mixing of file systems 
>> as well,
>> > don't ask me how. Matter of fact don't ask me anything, I'll ruin 
>> your box.
>> >
>> > George Hare
>>
>> Hi George. Fun isn't it. When you bootup, and get the GRUB menu, which 
>> FC is
>> it booting? FC5, or FC6. this will tell you whether it's FC5's, or FC6's
>> GRUB.
>>
>> Nigel.
> 
> Well, I am inserting the install cd's and it very quickly gets to the
> part where you install the image, but it realizes that everything is
> already there and kindly asks me if I would like to add any OS's to
> the boot loader, so I add the one that is not there. If I select the
> added OS, it gives me GRUB. 

That sounds like what you wanted.

> If I choose the one it put there, that is the OS I get. It's like the
> long version of a boot disk :=[ 

I think I follow you here, but am not sure. Could to explain this a bit 
more? What does the entry have? Is it the root (hdx,0) /1/ whatever you 
mentioned earlier?

> The strange thing is the mixing of the file system. On the desktop
> icon for computer, network, file system....when I am in fc5 and click
> on the file system icon, I get just what you expect, bin, boot,
> etc...but the strange thing is the very 1st folder is named "1". When
> I click on 1, I get another set of folders bin, boot, etc... but dev
> is empty and bin is full,

That is because /dev is a dynamically loaded filesystem. The devices are 
created at boot, depending upon what devices are detected at loading. 
The /1 entry is your root filesystem referenced by label which is /1.

> but all the folders are different from any folder I've ever seen
> before---they are blue diamonds...no, I have not smoked anything.

I believe the diamonds reference symlinked files which it cannot 
determine since the references are usually against the / as being the 
root directory. When you are viewing the volume under fc5, it cannot 
find a valid reference for the symlink.

> Then my xmms was already setup and I could load all my tunes from my
> other file system. Xine worked as always in fc5, but in fc6 video was
> fine but no sound, I have onboard sound and I put a sound blaster in
> it as well. I did quite a bit of knuckle scraping with this until I
> found the new sound default system. I didn't have to set it for xmms,
> but I did for xine? I am going to be semi-content for awhile going
> back and forth, but I'm going to find some reading on Grub and
> install 20 distro's just for spite.

good luck getting sound up and running in FC6. Have fun with your 20 
distros. I am content with one development installation and one FC6 
installation. I bit the bullit and downgraded glibc and company in FC7 
in progress and am typing this response in the system.

Enjoy Linux 20 times over, if you get your 20 versions successfully 
installed.

BTW, thanks for passing on the feature where the installer prompted you 
to allow an adding of an install to the menu. I like this feature and 
will try this on one of my systems to see how it works out.

Jim

> 
> George
>> From: "grumpypenguin"
>> Don't worry about it I Fubar mine all the time ;-(
> 
> This was only the first battle; the war is far from over.
> 
> George
> 


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